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11/17/2004: "SPECTACLES"

Why art is important from the beginning of human live
Thinking about art, art-in-nature, painting etc. I discovered two major points. I had some notion about it when I started several years ago and said; ‘Art flywheel of society’. I got a lot of comments. How can I say this, what was my point exactly and the economy is the supreme flywheel. So I had a lot to explain and it was hard to explain also in a short discussion. After some time, starting with my flames, I got another quote. I expressed ‘the flame of art moves the world’. A statement that is just a little easier to explain. So the energy art gives to the artists and the audience moves them to another points of view and is leading people to see the world in a new light. It is the engine of creativity. Okay, okay.. not everybody is seeing this point and I was very enthusiast later when I found a metaphor for art: spectacles, a pair of glasses.


I remember when I was about 16 years old on high school, sitting in the last row I couldn’t read what the teacher was writing in front. ‘Dear Adri’ he said ‘please read what I did write here’. Impossible. It was all grey, with no details. So the magnificent teacher says. ‘You cannot read this? Are you an illiterate person or ….perhaps, maybe, do you need a pair of glasses?. Lucky for me it was this last fact. Going to the doctor I got my glasses and the world started to be brilliant, bright and full of unseen details. I discovered a brand new world.

So this is what art is. It gives the world all the time glasses to see the world around in a new way; ‘Oh.. can you see it also like this’ or ‘After this drama I can understand more about my own live’. The artist as a human spectacle. And then, seeing the new details, having the new experience the audience got new impulses for their own situation. The flame of art is lighted and gives new energy. Making possible new ways of acting.

But there is also another aspect in the work of all the artists I learned. Reading in an art-magazine I discovered the work of an Dutch artist living from 1712 – 1784. His name: Simon Fokke Arendsz. He was etching historical images based on paintings from other painters. But he was not making exact copies. He was making new pieces of art out of it. He was saying, because he was not following the other artists as a servant, this very impressive quote: ‘an artist has to invent new beauty’.

This quote is making the circle round. Art flywheel of society is a flame that moves the world because of the fact that artists has to be inventors of new beauty.

The impact is that artists has to struggle all their live for inventing. Never lean back and always doubtful about the results. ‘Doubt is the engine of artist live’ once a teacher told me.

(image credits: No 1 is from my own work. 'Tableflame dancing' ( from the series Tableflames. 60 to 60 cm. Acrylic on panel. No 2 'Peat Necropolis'- by Anton Watzeeld (NL) for Peat Polis 2002. No 3 'Conversation III'- Koji NAKASE (J), Natuurkunst 2002.)