My "High Society" Post

As I was brainstorming my next post, I became aware of a connection between art and writing, which lead me to realize that I was disappointed in myself as a writer. Allow me to explain:

When you look at a piece of art, it can be considered "good" for many reasons. In my mind, they can be boiled down to aesthetics, and meaning. ("Meaning" being a very, very broad term.) So when you look at a piece of art, you can enjoy it for it's visual appeal through means of color, lines, etc. But if it doesn't represent anything or send any sort of message, then is it really worth anything? In other words, what else does it have to offer except being "pretty". This is the same thing with writing. When I write things, I don't want them to just be flowery words about my daily life. That would be the same as painting a picture of a lamp shade. It could be a very pretty lampshade, but that's all it's good for. When you create something, you want it to be appealing, but also meaningful and intelligent.

When you look at artists like Picaso and Dali, (cliched examples, I know) they take that visual appeal and create a piece of art. You know what I mean when I say a "piece of art"? I mean they transcend those aesthetics to create art that impacts a society and changes the history of art forever.

Let's look at Picaso's Demoiselles D'Avignon. In his original sketches, you can see that he wanted to create a brothel scene with women surrounding some gentlemen. His original idea was to create this really controversial scene and include his audience in it. The two men are meant to represent all men. The sailor is a very dominant and boisterous man who is fully engaged and surrounded by prostitutes. The journalist is reserved and sensitive and acts as more of an observer. Not only can any man project himself into this picture if he wished, but the painting actively draws viewers in by making them sit at the table that is jutting directly into the painting.

This scene, however, has been done before, at least in bits and pieces. Brothels have been cropping up in paintings and sculptures since their creation, and one of the most typical characteristics of the entire baroque style is to engage its viewers in the art. This painting is thought provoking and nice to look at and that's that. However, Picaso takes this sketch, and enhances it to create the most ground-breaking work in the decade, at least!

This final product maintains the controversy that was established in the first sketch, while adding Iberian and and Ancient Tribal influences, while also disregarding space and dimensions almost completely. Because of this change, the painting single-handedly spearheaded the Primitivist/Cubist movement. It was in this transition that he took his mediocre and visually pleasing sketch, and created a "work of art".

The same thing can happen in writing. If you tell me a story about how you went to the store to buy groceries and ended up saving a puppy from a forest fire and radioactive space bears, that would be pretty rad, but it's not going to change the world. When I think about how I've been essentially treating my blog like a diary, that makes me sad. While my stories might make you laugh, they're not going to make you think about the world in a different way, or challenge you as a human being. But on the other hand, if I wrote posts like this all the time, I have a feeling no one would be interested in reading my blog after a while.

My point is, when I write, I don't want it to be just words. I want those words to become questions and answers and hilarious awesomeness and STUFF. That's why I feel guilty about just talking about myself all the time and telling you stories about my life. I'm not saying I'm going to stop, because it's freaking fun, but I am going to try harder to maintain some literary integrity with posts like these. This way, I can continue to challenge myself, and hopefully challenge my readers, which is what great artistes like myself strive to do.