PONDERING ABOUT ART

Reading the last article released by Eng. Simone Bianchi some doubts came to my mind:
I had always thought that you can define music, theater, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, literature, architecture, photography as “art” ( Did I forget something? tell it to me as I do not want to offend anyone omitting anything..however, the concept is clear).

But what makes these disciplines become art while other man's creations don't ?

Surely it is art when the artist is able to convey to the listener a feeling, an emotion. And it is art 'when it communicates something.
Then is art a language? No, because each listener perceives a different message.

The artist provokes a reaction inside us, something it is already inside ourselves. Everyone has within oneself a wealth of feelings and experiences that differs from person to person therefore each one is affected in a different way.

The great artworks have something familiar for us, because we find something we deeply own but at the same time they astonish us as something totally new. Only then they are impressive and let us reflect.

A "creation" of the artist can:

let us reflect

enlighten

change the way we think or look at the world,

bring out lost memories,

give joy,

feel we are no longer alone,

console

transport you to a different world (!) ,

open a glimmer of hope,

or simply amaze.

It 's something that lets you live the next day in a different way .

I believe that all human creations causing these reactions are art. I think that art necessarily happens among people, when passing by from the artist to another person (even painting stalled for years at the museum, it excites the spectator at the time of the vision, because it is then that the creation enter into comparison with the mind of the person in front of it) .

Usually the direction goes from the artist toward the viewer, but sometimes even the artist can perceive much of the viewer, when he creates in front of audiences, such as a musician (unfortunately this doesn't not involve visual artists and composers).

It 's like a communication , but much deeper.

So far my "traditional" way of understanding art.

But if I do the opposite path in comparison with the previous one, i.e. I begin with the "symptoms" of art, taking for example the sentence "I believe that all human creations that cause these reactions are art," then perhaps we should add something else to the list of disciplines.

Let's take a musical instrument as an example, a Stradivarius. (Let's leave aside for a moment the aesthetic appearance that, without playing it, makes it already an artistic work ). The musician who plays a Stradivarius already , he discovers sounds and replies otherwise unknown while playing with another instrument. It is the instrument itself that opens up for him a new world of expressive resources.

I think that for the lucky player the list of adjectives and statements about the nature of art described above fitting his situation is already long enough.

If we move now in the concert environment, we find it not hard at all not to realize how the listener is involved and perceives the wonders that are established between instrument and musician. Is it not an emotion listening to even one note of an instrument by Stradivarius (of course played in a proper way)? So not only we hear a Brahms sonata, but inside it there is the sound world created by Antonio Stradivari (with a Guarneri and Montagnana it would be a further sound world).

Similarly the bow plays an equivalent role . A good bow gives to the musician the functional mean to use his instrument. But a great arch is much more , it makes possible a sound quality issue otherwise unthinkable , giving the opportunity of a as pianissimo with colors never imagined, creates a sound quality in balzato and staccato that enriches the expressive variety of the musician.

The visionary sensitivity of the bowmaker bends the stick into a curve that melts the muscle dynamics of the musician with its adherence on the string. It this way it creates the illusion of being able to control the resonance of the instrument directly with the muscles without having to take into account too many mechanical factors. In this way it approaches the performer to music.

You could say that the bookmaker lives inside the dynamic creation of music. At the same time it gives the musician the opportunity to "speak more freely."

For the listener the bow has a more insidious effect because it affects the dynamic of the expression, the flexibility of color change , the vivacity of the performance, but certainly it does not affect it less than the instrument.

Is philosophy art?

"The man may feel small compared to the universe, or great because it is rich inside, according to philosophy. After all, we filter all the impressions we have of the world surrounding us through our personal philosophy ... and that changes the emotions it gives us.

Photography is interesting. Everybody considers it (if done at a certain level, of course) an artistic discipline. But the photographer just cuts out a piece of reality and puts it in a frame. The importance lies in the choice of the piece of reality and the light in which he shows it to us, allowing him to communicate so many things.

Can science can be a form of art?

 Even simple thoughts like knowing that the yogurt is full of bacteria that live in our intestines and affect our body functions may change the way we perceive our human nature ...

Thinking about a gas under pressure that can only expand but that will never come back in the bottle by itself, makes us understand that there are "unidirectional" phenomena (known in physics as entropy), while we always instinctively think that all processes can occur in two opposite directions ...it may be an abstract thought, but if you think about it the next day the world would assume a different look. 

In this sense, the theory of relativity is certainly art, if the reader has understood it (if he understood, certainly a large part of his concepts and thoughts about how the world is working, would collapse).

The theme makes me lose in a whirl of thoughts and feelings, I want to go before my brain gives too many signs of slowing down ...

... I leave room to other ones ...

Jakob Ludwig,

cellist