Note – this post may be truncated in providers like Gmail, for best reading
We’re Looking for Art to Feature in these Newsletters
We do not use AI to generate images. We support and celebrate human creativity. And we’re always looking for great art by real artists to feature in our newsletters! If you are an artist (or know of one), please leave a comment with a link to your art. Each piece we feature goes to more than 100,000 inboxes and is properly attributed with backlinks to the artist’s website. We discovered some great art from artists who commented on our last article that are featured in or below the article!
(See Clintavo’s Curated Corner after the article)
This essay originally appeared on my personal Substack, Clinsights as here.
Editor’s Note: In two days, this post will be locked and is available only to paid members because we don’t want this duplicate content on the open web in a way that might draw traffic away from the original post. You can always read the entire post here.
We are sharing this essay in The BoldBrush Letter because the underlying idea applies to all artists. Please enjoy.
Useless Art
Oscar Wilde famously said that, “all art is quite useless.” What did he mean by that? The sentiment echos the idea of l’art pour l’art – “art for art’s sake” – popularized in the 19th century by Théophile Gautier.
Anything useful is a means to an end. A glass may be beautiful, but its primary value is that it holds water. It is useful as a means to the end of quenching your thirst.
Most things in our lives, especially in the materialistic world of modernity, have to justify themselves by being useful to us. We sometimes refer to this usefulness, in economic terms, as utility. The idea behind utility is reflected in the famous marketing saying that, “people don’t want a 1-inch drill, they want 1-inch holes.”
But Art is quite different. Art is a bit of a conundrum to the modern mind of productivity. Modern man can’t quite wrap his head around true art, intellectually, because Art is not a means of getting something useful. Art itself is both the means and the ends.
The viewer of a painting, or the listener of a piece of music isn’t interested in using the art to get something else. The goal isn’t to get to the end of the song efficiently. The experience itself is the entire end…and this is what makes art beautiful and pure. Art is complete — a circle of energy between the artist, the viewer and the Divine — needing nothing else but to simply exist.
We cannot truly possess Art; however, like all true beauty, Art possess us. Humans don’t have Art, Art has humans.
Humans don’t have Art. Art has humans.
It is true that we may possess the medium of the Art, such as the painting itself, but that is just owning the canvas, the paint and the frame. We cannot possess the idea or the energy that Art beams out into the world; for energy, by definition, must keep moving or it ceases to exist. Nor may we possess the way Art affects the soul of others who enjoy it. A museum may never possess the true value of a work of art because the real value is the soul-growth that happens in those who view it. This is what makes owning the medium of Art and locking it away in a vault such a sin. That is equivalent to the wicked servant in the parable of the talents who buried his master’s talent in the ground. Art is made to multiply talents of the soul.
We talk about our favorite songs, and listen to them over and over. We return, time and again, to our favorite paintings, images, books, and movies and look at them many times over the course of our lives..why?
I posit that, in returning repeatedly to our favorite Artworks, we are seeking the Promethean fire, the soul-feeling that Art provides. The inspiration that Art gifts us is not some sort of economic “utility.” No! Instead, the energy Art beams into our souls is none other than the archetypal force of Hercules that breaks the chains of our inner Prometheus, liberates us from the rock of materialism, and removes the shackles of productivity so that we may utilize the “stolen fire of the gods” to make our souls soar through inspired creativity.
The energy Art beams into our souls is none other than the archetypal force of Hercules that breaks the chains of our inner Prometheus, liberates us from the rock of materialism, and removes the shackles of productivity so that we may utilize the “stolen fire of the gods” to make our souls soar through inspired creativity.
In a way, this experience of Art is a sort of “proof” that we have souls; for if we were merely rational beings born from matter, then returning to our favorite works of art repeatedly, or enjoying art at all would simply be a waste of productive time and money. To live only for efficiency and productivity is to remained chained to the rock of materialism while the eagle of modernity pecks out our liver — a symbol of our emotions, a symbol of our soul.
Fortunately, humans only pretend to be rational, but deep down, we are irrationally romantic, and, even the most hardened heart is sometimes moved by art, music, or dance. Consider this story of a Ukrainian mafia don whose heart was softened by a violin virtuoso:
Alexander Filonenko tells the story of his friend, a violinist who was kidnapped by the mafia in Kharkiv, Ukraine, in the 90s. He had his violin with him. When he was brought to the mafia don, the man looked at his instrument and said, “Play something for me.” The violinist realized that it could be his last performance. So, he played his favorite piece — Bach’s Sarabande.
As he played, his kidnappers stood stock-still, as if struck dumb. When he finished, there was silence in the room. Finally, the mafia don spoke, “I will let you go. More than that, I will have my boys fix the door to your apartment that they broke.” There were tears in his eyes.
– Eugene Terekhin, Where Light Haunts the Shadow
Experiencing a piece of Art is a bit like falling in love with another person. We don’t (generally) marry another simply to share expenses and split up the chores — that is the purview of roommates. In a romantic relationship, we desire the feeling of love that we experience by being with that person. We want to feel possessed by them – just as we want to feel possessed by Beauty, Art, Truth and, ultimately, the source of all that is often called God.
Art must be its own end to express sheer beauty – that beauty that cuts away the world and shines brightly, enveloping us in its possessive and comforting arms. To cut and to shine – those are what sheer means. Normally, our vision is occluded. But when Art expresses sheer beauty, it cuts away those distracting occlusions and cleaves a fissure through our illusions into which the Light may shine brightly. Such Art shines clear and pure and, when we perceive it, Reality itself is clarified for an instant, and we no longer “see through the glass darkly” as Saint Paul wrote, but instead, we glimpse through to the true Reality of Divine ground. If you’ve ever been moved to tears by a painting, a song or a novel, you know what I mean.
Art shines clear and pure and, when we perceive it, Reality itself is clarified for an instant, and we no longer “see through the glass darkly” as Saint Paul wrote, but instead, we glimpse through to the Divine ground.
Therefore, to be Art, an artistic creation cannot be a means to anything other than itself, which is synonymous with the divine.
Interestingly, this “useless” dynamic extends even to the act of creating Art. In market-driven modernity, this presents a conundrum and a dilemma for the artist who sells. The art cannot be produced for the end of money – that reduces it to an economic good of utility and therefore turns it into merchandise. One’s Art must be produced for its own end. Period. The End. Fin. This dynamic takes us into territory that AI can never follow.
So, like the magazines of yesteryear, and like Google in the days of “don’t be evil” before they became evil, the artist must not allow advertising to drive editorial. To do so is to produce merchandise and kitsch. The serious artist, therefore, must establish a psychological firewall between his making and his marketing. This is not easy (though it is certainly possible!) and it is the reason that those blessed with the proverbial “artist’s spouse” who handles all of their marketing are quite blessed indeed.
PS — Please help us authors and artists push back against AI. If you’d like to support my writing, but don’t wish to join as a paid subscriber please click Like, or Restack and help me reach new people. This also helps push back against the encroachment of AI because I do not write with AI and I only feature human artists (with proper links and attribution) in the images with my posts.
FASO Loves Jennifer Kahn Barlow’s paintings!
Wouldn’t You Love to work with a website hosting company that actually promotes their artists?
As you can see, at FASO, we actually do, and,
we are the only website host we know of that does.
Click the button below to start working
with an art website host that actually cares about art.
Clintavo’s Curated Corner
We’re Looking for Great Art!
If you know of a great piece of real visual art (no AI art) that we should consider for future illustration of our articles or to feature in Clintavo’s Curated Corner, please click the button below and leave a sentence or two explaining what you like about a piece with a link to it on the web. It may be your own art or someone else’s (please do not send via email as we are much less likely to see or respond to those, thank you):
PS – Wouldn’t You Love to work with a website hosting company that actually promotes their artists?
Click the button below to start working with an art website host that actually cares about art.
No AI Zone: Everything written in this post (and all our posts) is written 100% by flesh and blood humans
We do not use AI images with our writing. We prefer to feature and provide more exposure for human artists. If you know of a great piece of art we should consider, please leave a comment with a link to it. All featured images are properly attributed with backlinks to the artist’s website. You can help support human artists and push back against AI by liking or restacking this piece by clicking the “Like” icon ❤️, by clicking the “Restack” icon 🔁 (or by leaving a comment).
