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The power of art in my life assignment
The power of art essay
The power of art essay
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Solitude feeds both the genius and the estranged. It frees one from convention thus allowing for deep thought and reflection, which inevitably leads to great discover. Yet there is a delicate balance that one must take carful pains to follow. For without constraints (as defined by society) there are no rules (or laws) to structure and contain the wild nature of the human mind. Chaos ensues; madness seeps in, and the soul is engulfed. Uncontained raw passion is dangerous, insatiable and destructive. Time must not allow it to fester alone and change into uncontrollable urges; it must be shaped and molded to produce mastery for if not, one becomes consumed by sheer emotion and they succumb to the abyss.
Artists (either consciously or subconsciously) acknowledge the abyss and carefully curb passion and bend it to their will in order to produce. Art is representation of human nature. It tries to capture the very essence of humanity behind ink, paper, paint or plaster. But it is a risk; art plunges the observer into the producer’s mind exposing all of the creator’s flaws, and all of his unholy urges. Sometimes these urges are so heinous and distorted that it forces the producer to retreat from society and immerse himself entirely in his work, for art is the only way he knows how to contain his wicked. In turn society makes an unspoken agreement with the creator; they look at what the piece says about them, rather than what is reflects about the creator himself. Thus they turn a blind eye (again either consciously or subconsciously) and no one directly claims that the creator is an abomination and the artist is free to his own morality.
In Thomas Mann’s novella Death In Venice, Mann grapples with the concept of discipline and passio...
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...eir deepest and most personal thoughts into the piece. Ironically in creating something so personal the work often has a universal effect because of its common humanity. Any masterpiece of art such as Death in Venice is timeless. As human interest shifts the piece will maintain validity for as long as human compassion and human weakness exist connections to the piece will survive.
Works Cited
Mann, Thomas, and Clayton Koelb. Death in Venice: a New Translation, Backgrounds and Contexts, Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton, 1994. Print.
Mann, Thomas. Letter to Hedwig Fischer. 14 Oct. 1912. MS. Germany, Bad Tölz, Bavaria.
Mann, Thomas. Letter to Ernst Bertram. 16 Oct. 1911. MS. Germany, Bavaria, Munich.
Cavafy, Constantine, Edmund Keeley, Philip Sherrard, and Geo%u0304rgios P. Savvide%u0304s. C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1975. Print.
Ruskin, John. “Grotesque Renaissance.” The Stones of Venice: The Fall. 1853. New York: Garland Publishing, 1979. 112-65. Rpt. in Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism. Ed. Jelena O. Krstovic. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1989. 21-2.
Over the decades, art has been used as a weapon against the callousness of various social constructs - it has been used to challenge authority, to counter ideologies, to get a message across and to make a difference. In the same way, classical poetry and literature written by minds belonging to a different time, a different place and a different community have somehow found a way to transcend the boundaries set by time and space and have been carried through the ages to somehow seep into contemporary times and shape our society in ways we cannot fathom.
Before you begin reading this paper, look through the appendix. Are you shocked? Disgusted? Intrigued? Viewers of such controversial artwork often experience a wide spectrum of reactions ranging from the petrified to the pleased. Questions may arise within the viewer regarding the artistic merit and legitimacy of this unorthodox artwork. However, art's primary purpose, according to Maya Angelou, “is to serve humanity. Art that does not increase our understanding of this particular journey or our ability to withstand this particular journey, which is life, is an exercise in futile indulgence” (Buchwalter 27). To expand on Angelou's analogy, because everyone experiences a different life journey, art is different to everyone. In other words, art is subjective to the viewer. The viewer creates his own definition of what is art and what is not art. Some may recognize the artistic value of a piece of artwork, while others may find it obscene. Some may praise the artwork, while others will protest it. Censorship is derived from these differing perspectives on artwork. Through censorship, communities seek to establish boundaries and criteria that limit an artist's ability to produce “proper” artwork. However, some artists choose to ignore these boundaries in order to expand the scope of art and, in their view, better serve humanity.
I am an artist. That is not a disclaimer or a boast; it is a statement of position. I believe in the undeniable importance of art and the futility of censorship. I also believe that art is one of the best indicators of the mood of a culture. Scholars, doctors, therapists, and lawyers can attempt to explain us to ourselves, but their testimony, while useful, will almost always be dry and lacking in emotional depth. I am proud to write in defense of a group that predates and outlasts all other professional analysts of the human condition-creators of art.
Rudd, Jay. Critical Companion to Dante: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work. New York. 2008. Print.
Redemption is the act of being saved by from sin, error, or evil. Redemption is a major theme in all writings, short-stories, novels, poems, plays, etc. Many people in their lives look to achieve redemption by the time they kick the bucket, however sometimes redemption is achieved with death. In Christianity I am reminded of the significance of the death of Christ on the cross to relate to the theme of redemption in death. In this paper I hope to accomplish a contrast of the novel A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines and the play of Hamlet by William Shakespeare, by using the theme of redemption in death, and also ultimately explaining
Ferguson, Margaret W., Salter, Mary J., and Stallworthy, Jon. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. fifth ed. N.p.: W.W. Norton, 2005. 2120-2121. 2 Print.
Death is an eternal mystery and the most controversial subject stemming from human inexperience. Its inescapability and uncertainty can give insights on the core principles and vulnerability of human nature. In Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet he skilfully makes use of death as a lashing force to explore the depths of his characters along the way illustrating man’s continual dilemma “To be or not to be”?
The theme of death is portrayed in both Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘The Pardoner’s Tale’ and Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. Whether it be death itself, or a personified representation of it. Allegory characters such as the Seven Deadly Sins have been used, as well as the notion good and evil, as a way to corrupt characters which lead to their deaths. Chaucer and Marlowe have achieved this by using elements such as language and structure, imagery and macabre. These elements and themes have been used in my own creative writing work.
...rs solitude to be of great importance in achieving an individualistic understanding. He writes, “It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” Here it can be seen that Emerson also recognizes solitude to be a beneficial thing to people, but he argues that to be able to remain an individual within society is a far greater achievement. To be able to think without the assistance of society while enduring the pressures of society is to be truly great.
Death is a great wave whose shadow falls upon the lives of all beings below Olympus. Amidst this shadow and its immediacy in war, humans must struggle to combat and metaphysically transcend their transitory natures. If they fail to forge a sense of meaning for themselves and their people in what often seems an inexorably barren world, they are lef...
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann, is a story that deals with mortality on many different levels. There is the obvious physical death by cholera, and the cyclical death in nature: in the beginning it is spring and in the end, autumn. We see a kind of death of the ego in Gustav Aschenbach's dreams. Venice itself is a personification of death, and death is seen as the leitmotif in musical terms. It is also reflected in the idea of the traveler coming to the end of a long fatiguing journey.
Solitude. Examples are found of this idea throughout the one-hundred-year life of Macondo and the Buendia family. It is both an emotional and physical solitude. It is shown geographically, romantically, and individually. It always seems to be the intent of the characters to remain alone, but they have no control over it. To be alone, and forgotten, is their destiny.
It is arguably in comedy that metatheatricality emerges most strongly, allowing a play to parody its own status as drama. But while The Merchant of Venice does employ metatheatrical elements, its classification as comedy is both problematic and unsettling. Ultimately, metatheatricality imbues the story with tragic thematic undertones, and consequently a comic structure gives way to the tragic . It is in considering the play as a written work that such undertones seem to emerge most strongly. Ironically, the accumulation of words—the physical construction of lines within scenes—reveals a pattern in which words themselves emerge as the tragic threat. Speech and language become a precari...
“In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. Moreover, unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it.” This quote by Ernst Fischer, a German composer, means that truth in art exposes the parts of society, and of life, that no one wants to see. In order for art to change society, it must first reflect the fears and failures of its people. The artist can change how people think of themselves and the world by using less conventional methods of creating art. The artist, in doing this, introduces new ideas of human placement in time and space, new frontiers of thought, that are furthered by the disciplines of science and philosophy. The artist works to introduces unique- and sometimes offensive- ideas so that society will be exposed to new ways of thinking and understanding the world. The artist does this through experimentation with color, style, and form. Therefore, the purpose of the artist should be to challenge how individuals perceive themselves and the offensive aspects of society reflected in art to bring about innovations in the greater society.