ARTificial ARTifacts & ARTiculated ARTicles

PART I:

Look at those bacterial phenomena, the Darwinian Homo sapiens: they muse in music; they pant at a painting; they smile at a simile; they’re pro prose; and they climb the poetry. They consort with concert halls; they go gala at a gallery; they feel liberated at the library; and they teeter at the theater. Or, in Shakespearean lexicon: “alas, finest of creatures, thou art artlessly artful”.

O. Henry’s conman in “Masters of Arts” put it best: “you and me will have an Art to Art talk”. Yes, there is a common artery running between the Fine Hearts and the Fine Arts; as any Aristotelian artiste can attest: “Art is not about the filling; it is about the feeling”.

From diverse languages of many shapes, to many shapes of diverse languages, the feelings of the heart have many vehicles: Musicians speak through their music; Orators find their music in speech; Artists have an inkling with paint; Writers are painting in ink.

And, like the languages of Art, its periods and movements are just as periodical and moving: the Masters found their “rebirth” in the Renaissance; Neoclassicism gives a renaissance to the canonic classics; emotion holds precedent in Romanticism; Cubism creates new precedents for emotion.

And then, of course, the greats who have made Art their language: Homer is epic in his writing; Dante is hellish in his. Michelangelo’s painting raises the ceiling; Monet’s is impressionable. Amadeus’s music is Mozart; Jimmy’s is wow-wow. Hugo tells a story Le Miserably; Dickens tells it in the best of times and the worst of times. Van Gogh lends his ear to his brush; Salvador’s is surreally Dali-cate. Dylan’s music is tangled up in the blues; James is tangled up in Brown. Robert’s verse is a bit Frosty; Byron’s is a bit Lordly.

Still, no matter how many categories it can be broken into, Art in its purest form cannot be categorized – or broken into. Within the artist, Art is like the heart – delicate and raw – only once expressed does it becomes either an ism – Surrealism, Cubism, Classicism – or a period – Renaissance, Modern, Post-modern – or a person – Shakespearean, Homeric, Quixotic.

This Blog will now like to concentrate on the purity of Art, without isms, periods, or persons. However, in order for that to be done, we must have some artillery with which to express ourselves – lest I write and you not understand. So, though the new name is ARTicles, a classified partisan art form, nevertheless, the stress is placed more on the ART than on the icle: the article is but a means with which to reach the Art. Or, as James Joyce might pun it, “the article is but a particle, a start to the art”. Ok, that sounded more like Dr. Seuss, but you get my drift.

I don’t know about you esteemed readers, but this article has made me, the estranged writer, artichoke.