New Day Rising– Now at West End Gallery
Art is not a plaything, but a necessity, and its essence, form, is not a decorative adjustment, but a cup into which life can be poured and lifted to the lips and be tasted.
–Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941)
In what is considered her masterpiece describing the history and culture of Yugoslavia, author Rebecca West wrote in Black Lamb and Grey Falcon that art and culture, especially in the form of myths and storytelling, provide both countries and individuals with a revitalizing well from which they can drink in order to survive the difficulties of life and history. Art and culture connects us with symbols, stories, and myths that changes our mere existence into one brimming with purpose and meaning.
I know that West is writing primarily about storytelling and the myths of nations, which is evident in the passage from which the lines above are taken, which I am sharing below. But I feel that the purpose they serve, as West sees it, is very much the same for art in general. Art moves us beyond our own day-to-day existence, connecting us with our known and unknown pasts and futures. It allows us to feel as though we are part of some greater vehicle, serving both as a function of memory and desire.
Indeed, art is not a plaything. It is an elixir that invigorates the spirit and soul.
Below is the expanded passage from Rebecca West. I think there may be relevance in it for this country at this juncture in history.
Art is not a plaything, but a necessity, and its essence, form, is not a decorative adjustment, but a cup into which life can be poured and lifted to the lips and be tasted. If one’s own existence has no form, if its events do not come handily to mind and disclose their significance, we feel about ourselves as if we were reading a bad book. We can all of us judge the truth of this, for hardly any of us manage to avoid some periods when the main theme of our lives is obscured by details, when we involve ourselves with persons who are insufficiently characterized; and it is possibly true not only of individuals, but of nations. What would England be like if it had not its immense Valhalla of kings and heroes, if it had not its Elizabethan and its Victorian ages, its thousands of incidents which come up in the mind, simple as icons and as miraculous in their suggestion that what England has been it can be again, now and for ever? What would the United States be like if it had not those reservoirs of triumphant will-power, the historical facts of the War of Independence, of the giant American statesmen, and of the pioneering progress into the West, which every American citizen has at his mental command and into which he can plunge for revivification at any minute? To have a difficult history makes, perhaps, a people who are bound to be difficult in any conditions, lacking these means of refreshment.
Redtree Times 