The metaphors are endless. Art is three in one.
Art is a whole, indivisible, undivided. It is itself, the object, and the emotion created in and through the object. Art is the shaping and forming of the artist's incoherent emotion. Art is the emotional reaction the viewer has. In any certain piece of art one of these attributes may be diminished, the artist's emotion, the form of the emotion, or the audience's experience, but the art is still the whole.
Art is not parts added together and so the failing of one of these three areas does not leave a hole in the work creating non-art. Art is a whole and the failing of one of these areas creates art un-wholly realized.
Art is the communication of emotion.
The artist lays on the paint spattered concrete floor of her studio. PMS or painter's block it matters not. What matters is her inability to slough of the tension and anxiety that has devoured her soul. She grasps the bottle next to her head and empties the last of it without averting her eyes from the ceiling. A spider in its web waits in stillness. A fly catches the web and is held fast. The spider hurdles into action. The artist hurdles into life.
She grabs paint and begins her work. What it is does not matter, what it does matters. It does express her emotions, her feelings, her pent up anxiety and tension and all the rest that she never even knew existed.
In a flourish she is done.
But the art is not done.
Her girlfriend comes over, gasps, and kisses the artist.
The art is finished.
Leo Tolstoy said, art is the flowing of emotion from artist, through artwork, to audience. He was right. Art is the artist communicating with the audience. Art is the meeting of the emotions of the artist and audience.
Art is beauty. Art is an ecstasy, a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.
Art, and the emotion it embodies, is often mistaken for the spiritual. Art can be spiritual and great art often does carry spiritual significance, but the emotion of art, the emotion of beauty is too often confused with spiritual matters.
