Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/01/03
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Kevin Hoffberg posted the response of an "artist friend" to his question
"about what and why you shoot...for yourself" and assured us that it was
"worth the time it takes to read." Indeed it was, and more! But I'd like
to expand on the following comment his friend made:
Art is a form of communication. If an idea can be better expressed
in writing i[t] should be poetry or prose. If it can be best
expressed through sound it should be music. The visual arts
express something other or more than what can be expressed in
words...[and]...that you absolutely cannot express any other way.
We use a whole lot of metaphors trying to do so but there always
remains a little more that makes it work.
This is true (which is why someone once observed, "Art is not superfluous").
But WHY is it true? I suggest it's because a genuine work of art does not
merely express, but EMBODIES an expression. That's why Archibald MacLeish
wrote in "Ars Poetica" (quoted as best I can from memory, which may prove
faulty), "A poem should not mean, but be. It should be palpable and mute,
as a globed fruit." And that too is why Igor Stravinsky remarked, "Music
can express nothing---that is my conviction---it can express only itself"
(also quoted as best I can from memory).
Art Peterson
Alexandria, VA