Final Entry: A Summary of the Semester

What an odd, exciting, confusing, bitterwseet and dare I say colorful journey this has been. Throughout my course, and through the entries in this blog, I have gained a host of valuable knowledge about Western art that has only enticed my desire to learn a lot more. Though it is next to impossible to sum up centuries worth of art and an entire semester's worth of knowledge in one journal entry, I will at least attempt to summarize my own persepctives with one question: What isn't art?

Sure the question seems like philosophical tripe to some, but to me it is the single most important thing I have learned through this course. Everything in our world, everything in our lives and in our consciousness is art. From the role models we look up to, to the monuments we build, in the characters we paint on easels and through the songs that we sing, our whole life is just one big sculpture that we never stop constructing. The meaning of art has changed over time; from the first statue of David to the Colloseum in Rome, from the Pillars of Madrid to the Louvre in Paris, art has been transient in reflecting the values and ideologies of different people from different places in different times. But if there is one truly miraculous thing art does, it is that it unites us  by allowing us to share with the world everything we are feeling without using a single word. A newborn baby cannot distinguish one person from another but he/she can respond to colors and sounds. Little children in pre-school learn to finger paint before they have learned their alphabet. From the moment we enter the world to the moment we leave, we are using the artist within us to paint our own unique picture of the world. Art allows people to build cities through aqueducts, it allows people to commemorate god through the pillars in a cathedral, it allows the artists to express a hundred different ideas, thoughts and emotions on one sole easel or through one lone structure. Art is what allows us to understand the spiritual essence of our ancestors long after they have gone. No one can define what is the "right" type of art. No one can put a stamp on what an individual feels about the world. One man's Dali is another person's Monet; they may not have the same techniques or the same ideologies, but they are both considered artists. To some people art may speak volumes, to others it is devoid of meaning. But neither matters, because art is inherently a trade which does not need labels to justify itself. Because it has no borders, art has no limits.

If I were to sum the essence of art in one sentence, I would use the words of one Oscar Wilde, who said:      "Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand  different ways."

Journal Entry for the Week of March 21 to March 25

By all intents and purposes he was just another man who met a grissly end in a period when this was not unheard of. In 12th century England, Saint Thomas Becket was a religious bishop, a close friend of Henry II, and the spiritual leader of the Canterbury Cathedral, then the powerhouse of the English Church with alliegance to the pope. But events unforeseen would soon take this ordinary man and turn him into one nof the most revered martyrs of Christian antiquity, a symbol of unity amongst dispersed citizens and a source of artistic inspiration for centuries to come. He would also become an early manifestation of the notion that the martyrdom of one man could be a source of comfort for an entire nation, that grief could become peace, that from the gruesome remains of a corpse a society could unearth redemption and miracles.In many ways, Becket was to middle age art what Jesus Christ has always been to Christianity; a constant source of hope and redemption, a figure who symbolically rallied an entire nation during a period of turmoil and grief. In many ways, this cathedral was also a reminder of the absolute power that a figurehead can have over a population. Indeed, the enormity of building the cathedral and the reverence and worship Becket enjoyed as a martyr was evidence that power was not linked to life, but to need. After his gruesome murder the entire populace was in turmoil; by commemorating Becket his community allowed themselves a medium to heal and rendered Becket a most powerful figure. And similar to Christ, he did not have to be alive to excercise control and power over his followers.

In many ways the cathedral and the way it was constructed also helped us understand the psychological tendencies of this middle age society. The entire cathedral was adorned in hues of pink and white, symbolizing Becket's blood and brains and creating an eerie sense of reliving the horror of his murder everytime one visited the cathedral. On the other hand, the cathedral was constructed with windows upon windows on the walls, letting pure light in from all angles and bathing the shrine in literal and symbolic purity, with the light allowing worshippers to bask in the radiance of god himself. This almost seamless blend of bloodshed and beauty reflected a society that was willing to embrace both the horrors and the beauty of the past. Indeed, they were simultaneously cleansing themselves spiritually and giving penance for the crimes that had been committed against their revered martyr. It is both strange and humbling to look at how intimately this society was linked to their past, to the point that they would not dare disrespect their own histories by attempting to cover up or "prettify" the macabre reality of what Becket suffered. Instead, they used the grissly details as a constant reminder lest they forget, and immortalized Becket in such a manner that--as the documentary states--he achieved in death what he could not in life.