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Symbolism as a basis and conceptualism as a quality

   At the heart of any art is symbolism, as a kind of creativity of the individual. The symbols used can be quite complex and even complete works of art, but they can always be incorporated into another art form. This is an obvious truth that does not seem to require proof, but it is nevertheless widely ignored or hushed up. And the role of symbolism is reduced to one of the many currents in art, such as cubism or acmeism - without mentioning the deep aesthetic and philosophical significance of this knowledge. Without the possibility of interpretation in a new substrate, the object becomes a lifeless statement of facts, which may well suit “clip” thinking, but in no way corresponds to the search for “similarity in different things and differences in similar things”, as a traditional property of the human intellect. Moreover, these arguments concern not only painting, but the whole range of human interests, and it is impossible to break the art of music, the art of libretto and the art of mythology in just one work of Richard Wagner.        

   Speaking about the conceptuality of art, it should be remembered that conceptuality, as an indispensable feature of creativity, is present in any work of art, although it can be expressed in different ways - somewhere stylistically, somewhere technologically - because it is impossible to imagine a person, especially a person-creator is a kind of beast with no ideas, mechanically sorting through the options for solving the problem. However, the very solution of the problem - that is, the resolution of the idea - already speaks of the meaninglessness of such an assumption. The Brownian movement of water and air molecules is not capable of delivering the ship to a certain point; here an idea or concept of movement towards the goal is needed. Why is the fashionable word "conceptual" today tells us absolutely nothing about the very concept underlying this work or action. It is another matter that some wise men from the caste of art priests began to refer to certain movements of the second half of the 20th century with this newfangled and intriguing word, but this is their business, they could use a different definition without prejudice to their business. It is clear that without additional information about the technique and technology of the work, the definition of "conceptual" is not informative and fully corresponds to such a masterpiece as "buttery butter".