I got into an interesting discussion with my psychiatrist the other day about the definition of art. He asked me what I thought art was. I was reluctant to define it, since I don’t think art is something that can be pinned down easily, and I don’t like it when other people go around mouthing off about what art isn’t.
He said he had worked out a definition of art. It went something like this: “Art is the deliberate expression of love, over time.” I thought about it for a minute and agreed that it was a pretty good definition.
But my immediate thought was: “‘Love’? What does that have to do with my angry art?” I think his definition does allow art that expresses feelings of anger towards the self, because getting these feelings out into the air, solidified and recognized, is ultimately an act of love for the self.
I’m not so clear about art in which feelings of disgust and hatred are expressed for others (or disgust for others’ ideas). Clearly, this type of art can be “real art” in the sense of what is accepted in the modern world. I have enough emotional drive to fill an entire gallery with paintings describing my feelings of anger towards my step-mother. But what in this “angry art” is an expression of love? Is it also love for the self, manifested by setting boundaries, by giving name and form to the transgressions of others?
I’m not even sure that the definition of art should involve “love” at all, when a definition for love is just as hard to pin down as a definition for art.
I drew the following sketch some time in 1999. I had no idea what I was drawing at the time, but now I find it deeply and accurately symbolic. The mind is strange. Is love in this image? I’m not sure.
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