As the world crumbles around us, turn to art
When great art touches you, it is a profound experience which can help shape your life, and it is often unexplainable.
I was very glad to find that Bournbrook recently announced its very first book as part of its new publishing arm. Sunken Island: An Anthology of British Poetry is a poetry anthology which endeavours to “explore modern life” and make sense of a British culture which “finds itself at a crossroads”. As fundamentally grassroots as this project is, it is a noble attempt to restore what is lost on the youth in these tumultuous times: a true appreciation of how art can help us make sense of the world.
Art is important not just because it can entertain and enthral us, but because it binds us as a species. It is an archive of the human experience, and it documents how we make sense of the world through our observations and perceptions. Some of the deepest insights into the human condition have come from generations of novelists, filmmakers, painters, poets, and composers – not scientists. All great art touches on deeper, human truths that science can’t unearth, precisely because we’re only exposed to them via our intuition and emotions. It is on this level where art resonates with most people. When great art touches you, it is a profound experience which can help shape your life, and it is often unexplainable. In Shakespeare you know something profound is being communicated beneath the surface of the reality he pretends to depict, and the fact that an author can convey this feeling to another person without being explicit about it is beautiful. Art can make the most grandiose ideas feel personal. We can only make sense of things through the self, and when every idea or institution deemed too large for human understanding can be filtered through a piece of art we’re receptive to, then all of a sudden these ideas don’t seem so untouchable. Perhaps this is why art is so threatening to totalitarian regimes (a fantastic piece in The New York Times on this very subject can be read here).
Art is a sort of revelation. Not enough people appreciate the transcendent qualities of art – a life without art would truly not be worth living. It enriches the soul as much as it can enrich the mind. But these qualities are under threat of no longer being valued. Studies have shown a general decline in public attendance at art galleries and museums. Other statistics suggest that the art of poetry is sharply declining in popularity, near to the point of becoming a lost art. Even more worryingly, reading practices among the youth has hit record lows over the past few years, suggesting a declining interest in anything which doesn’t involve an interactive screen. Even cinema, a medium which was once a beacon of hope for original stories and experiences, is now showing stagnation, with audiences flocking to mass-market content based on IP’s rather than unique stories.
All of this paints a pretty bleak picture. Collectively, we seem to be caring less and less about art. We live in incredibly tumultuous times, times rife with anxiety about our place in the world. Wars, economic strife, plague, declining living standards, and endless corruption seem to dominate the news agenda every day. People are deeply disenchanted and fractured by the torrents of challenges we’re facing; perhaps this is why many see no need for trivialities such as art – but they’d be wrong. If we turn to art to make sense of the world, all of a sudden it might seem a little less lonely, fractured, and incomprehensible.
All of this starts from the individual. Immerse yourself in Keats, go to an art gallery with a friend, recommend Beethoven to a family member, go to a live concert, immerse yourself in the majesty of 2001: A Space Odyssey – it just might give us all the knowledge, inspiration, or reassurance we need to build something greater. I thank Bournbrook for trying to start the trend in the right direction.
