Romare Bearden – Vampin’ ( Piney Brown Blues)
***********************
The artist confronts chaos. The whole thing of art is, how do you organize chaos?
–Romare Bearden
***********************
I think the beginning of this quote from the late artist Romare Bearden (1911-1988) is an important statement and observation.
The artist confronts chaos.
That really speaks to me. It better defines a bit the purpose and necessity of art, both in a general and personal sense.
Maybe the purpose of art is to bring clarity and order to the world that confronts us, to illuminate the hidden or overlooked elements of our existence.
I don’t know for sure but these few words and my own experience make me believe it to be so.
For me, art is a way of distilling the torrent of information and sensations that flow through each of us every day down to a single manageable expression. An expression that helps me better understand and tolerate the chaos before me.
For me, it usually boils down to familiar forms and expressive colors. Found order and harmony above the chaotic rhythm of the texture below.
Like hearing a language you don’t really know but seem to somehow understand and trying to translate it to others.
It is different for every artist, no doubt. The idea of organizing chaos might seem totally foreign to some. I can’t say for sure what drives every artist or what purpose they derive from their art.
I can only speak for myself. That, in itself, might be a valid definition for art.
To that, I answer with my mantra: I don’t know.
And that is undoubtedly the driving force behind art.
Here’s Big Joe Turner and his Piney Brown Blues, the song that Romare Bearden references in the monotype at the top of he page. Have a good day.
I spent part of today thinking about Bearden’s question: how do you organize chaos. My answer? You don’t. We can’t. We learn to live with it, and within it, with as much grace as we can muster, and maybe a little luck on the side. It’s not an aberration; it’s a given of life.
I think you’re basically saying the same thing as Bearden. The chaos of which he writes, I believe, is a constant, a given of life as you say. It is not the chaos of current events and definitely not an aberration. It is omnipresent, always before us despite all efforts to put it in order. You don’t organize chaos itself. You organize your understanding, your perception of it, in order to find a way to tolerate it. And I think that is much the same as learning to live with and within it. Art is merely an expression of the artist trying to live with the eternal chaos they perceive.
Well, at least that’s what I think right now. Ask me again in an hour.