I wonder what Clyde Butcher would say to me if I were to ask
him to explain to me exactly how he feels when he is experiencing the Everglades
and taking the amazing photographs of this beautiful place. Would his words come
anywhere close to expressing his passion for the Everglades and other natural
areas as his photographs do? Would his words be an even better explanation and
expression of his feelings towards the Everglades than his photographs? How about
Marjory Stoneman Douglas? What if I were to ask her to put her feelings and
passion about the Everglades into a painting or into photographs? Would her works
of visual art be a better representation of her connection with the Everglades
than her literature? I think the better question is can any one person put their
feelings for something into multiple forms such as verbal representation,
literature, visual arts, or performing arts? You might have your occasional
amazing talented person who can pretty much draw any painting, sing any song, or
write any piece of literature and considered to be great at it. The reality is,
however, that most people have their own individual way of expressing themselves
whether it is in the form of art, literature, music, or in words. It all depends
as to how they wish to transform their feelings and their passion.
When looking at Clyde Butcher's photographs in his gallery,
I was overcome by being able to see and experience the passion he has for the
Everglades. His work showed me an angle of the Everglades that I had never seen
before. His photographs opened my eyes to seeing the Everglades in a different
way. My question then is this: would his photographs be considered great art? Is
Clyde Butcher a great artist?
Before I go on to answer this question from a personal point
of view, it is important to address what great art, great literature, great music,
etc really means. How can one truly define what great means in reference to
something as subjective as art or literature for example? I have been in numerous
art, music, dance, and literature classes where the teacher was actually able to
give us a set of guidelines to determine whether or not a piece of art or
literature was even considered art or literature, let alone being great.
Unfortunately, in my path to discover how to determine what anything great is, I
have found that none of these sets of guidelines were valid in helping me judge
the piece of art.
This brings me to the discussion we had during our lunch at
the Loop Road Environmental Education Center today. During our discussion of
Killing Mister Watson, the question arose as to whether or not this novel was
considered great literature or if Matthiessen was a great writer. That then led
to our discussion of judging art. In our discussion, several classmates brought
up to the plate their own set of guidelines to determine whether or not a piece of
art or literature is great. When first listening to this discussion, I had great
difficulty coming to my own conclusion because everything that every classmate
said seemed to make sense. Only one problem: all of those guidelines put together
would make it nearly impossible to judge a piece of art or literature because what
a piece of art might be judged as great in one category could be judged as
inadequate in another category. How could this problem possibly be solved? After
taking in what everyone had to say about art, I finally came to my own conclusion
about what great art, literature, or music is. When thinking back through the
times I had to judge something as subjective as art, the one thing that moved me
to the point that I was able to say "that is a great work of art or music" was
whether or not I could actually feel the creator's passion and emotions coming
through the work, reaching out to me, grabbing me and saying "This is how I feel,
this is what I see, and I want to share it with you so you can see the beauty the
way I see it or feel it." Never once have I really concluded that a piece of
music or art was great because it had a beautiful melody or was pretty to look at.
In one way or another, the work moved me. I can best relate this to music because
I am a singer and this is how I find music that I love. Because I judge things in
this way, it is practically impossible to associate my tastes with one genre of
music. I have found music that I have loved in the genres of country, pop, jazz,
rock, alternative, new age, and the list goes on. The same applies to literature
or the visual arts.
This guideline for judging art may not be as affective for
everyone; however, for me it has seemed to allow the most subjectivity to come
into play in judging a work of art, music, etc. This is important because I
believe, and will always hold as a belief, that art, no matter what the form, is
subjective. Art, music, dance, and literature are not sciences even though there
are those who will find a scientific equation to explain how each works. The core,
the roots of each, in my opinion, comes from the subjective and personal aspect of
human beings. Without this aspect, art, music, and literature seem shallow and
almost meaningless.
This brings me to the idea of truth. I believe that truth,
if given an individual's subjective beliefs and emotions, can be found in any form
that was created by that individual. Great art, in any form, holds the same
concept as truth in my opinion. What is truth? How can we determine truth? Will
we ever discover the complete and total truth about everything there is to know?
I do not believe that is a possibility; however, I feel that an individual's
attempt, using their passion and emotions, to discover truth is truth in and of
itself. Just as art, truth is not concrete and cannot 100% judged to be the
absolute, no questions asked, truth. Truth is found when experiencing one
another's passions. Today, for me, truth was found through Zeke and his passion
for the Everglades. Can Zeke paint an amazing painting, can he put his passion in
music, and can he write an amazing piece of literature about his connection with
the Everglades and be considered great? I think that as long as Zeke gave any one
of theses forms of art his true emotions and passion, it would be great because it
is a representation of what Zeke sees and feels about the Everglades, and that in
and of itself is great. Being able to look into his eyes and know that he loves
this amazing creation, the Everglades, was truth for me.
The concept of truth is an apparent theme in Killing Mr.
Watson by Peter Matthiessen. This novel discusses the life and death of a man
known as E.J Watson back in the late 1800s to early 1900s. Watson was a man who
traveled and lived in the ten thousand islands; a place where civilization had not
yet come into full swing and laws, if there were any, were meant to be broken.
Over several years, people kept dying in the areas surrounding Watson's presence. Some of these deaths were followed by Watson's disappearance, leaving the people of the ten thousand islands speculating that this man was killing people. The difficult part of the situation was that for most of the deaths, nobody had seen Watson commit the murders nor was there ever enough hard evidence to truly place the blame on him. The settlers of the ten thousand islands were still convinced that he was the one who committed the murders, and in the end they felt that he should be held responsible and hold the same fate as those he supposedly killed. In the end, Mr. Watson was unlawfully killed for the murders of several people, or was it just because of the murders?
In discussing the concept of truth from the novel during
Professor Wisdom's lecture, it became apparent that no matter how hard we tried to
pinpoint the murders on Watson, it could not be concluded with 100% certainty that
he committed them. When the "lawyer" in the class was asked a question about the
evidence leading to Mr. Watson for the murder of the Tuckers, he brought up the
technology of today. Explaining that with today's technology we could analyze and
determine who left the evidence at a murder scene, it came to my attention that
many consider this hard evidence as fact, and truth. But how do we know that this
evidence really leads us to the truth of what happened, or who committed the
murder or the crime? Yes it may be hard evidence proven by science, but how do we
know that someone else did not plant that evidence and frame someone? How do we
know that there was not a corrupt cop or forensic scientist that contaminated the
evidence for personal motives? How do we ever really know? Becausethese are acts
are caused by people, and all humans have a subjective aspect to their personality,
I would have to say that even though science points us in the right direction, it
still does not lead us to the 100% truth. The mere representation of this
evidence by a human being can sway the plausibility of the evidence, making
something look like something that it isn't. Professor Wisdom said an interesting
quote: "truth happens to an idea." This means that you do not create ideas based
on truth. Because I am still searching for my own meaning for truth, I cannot
agree nor disagree with this concept. I can say, however, that it makes more
sense than simply looking to science and concrete facts for truth.
My personal resolve on the issues of great works of art and
truth may not seem as concrete and sturdy as some may like, but it is as close to
subjectivity that I can get without saying that a child who scribbles on a piece
of paper because they lack the development of letters is a great artist. For me
it is essential that as human beings, the subjective aspect of our lives must be
a factor in any judgment that we make; whether it be art or truth. It is this
subjectivity, passion, and emotion that make us human and not inhumane. With this
personal insight, I leave you with two questions: what is great art; what is
truth?
