On Creativity, part 3 - Nature, the Body and the Roots of Aesthetics

On Creativity, part 3 - Nature, the Body and the Roots of Aesthetics

First: about well considered opinions. Aesthetics, concerning the expressed form of our creativity, is not an exact science. It is very much an individual experience and hard to translate, and so, depends largely on a survey of our sensual preferences. What do most people like? What creations make us cry and gasp and swoon and recoil? This is the way I see it. As of today.

While culture can bend our genetic predispositions to some degree, the rapture, wonder and awe of really good art is rooted in the place we evolved: our natural environment. That environment includes the sounds, the smells, the tastes, the sensations of the skin, and what we can see. It’s easy to broadly summarize our human preferences: Beethoven, flowers, pizza, hot baths, sunsets; chirping birds, barbecued meat, mangoes, hugs, sports cars; chanting, cinnamon, chocolate, a massage, the human figure.

As makers and consumers of creative work we are drawn to a majestic clouded sky, the expressive voice of a singer, a transportive narrative, the curve of a breast. We are also drawn to abstractions of these same things. It seems that the essence of our attraction is somewhere deeper than the actual thing we are attracted to. It could be simply a clear tone, a saturated color, a smoothly curving line, or the way a word lands that penetrates our senses to elicit a rapturous aesthetic response.

The Modern Art movement, for instance, reminded us how highly affective artwork can be achieved simply by the combination and arrangement of these more essential visual elements like color, shape, line, and texture. The great historical paintings of people, places and mythical scenes employed all the same essential elements, subversively I say, while meeting the demands of patrons and benefactors. Ostensibly, Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling was art in service of religion. Today we can see this magnificent work as religion in the service of art, the Papal coffers financing a timeless work. We see the artist, Michelangelo, standing apart from or above the content of the Christian narrative and infrastructure that now function as a willing gallery and easel. 

Look to the Modernists of the 20th Century to see how to mine the real aesthetic nuggets at the core of our humanity. The Expressionists, the Pop Artists, the Abstractionists, and the Surrealists lay it bare.

- Anthony D. Sinner