Is high art refined low art/folk art,
or is low art simplified high art? High art seems to be a
superstructure built over the structure of folk art.
What we appear to do is assimilate the
new, the unfamiliar, with the old material of our experience, this
seems to be where creativity comes from, new patterns formed between
old material and new material.
We don't see something in the outer
world and declare that new thing alone as a new thing, it has to
first harmonize and adapt with our inner world.
Was there a time when high and low art
were one art? When did they become unconnected? Natural hierarchies
form and develop their own values. And also the homogenizing and
globalization of human cultures had something to do with these
changes.
Even the Church did this sort of thing
when they built the pagan values of wisdom, courage, temperance and
justice on to the Christian virtues of faith, hope, charity and love.
I suppose in ideal cultures both high
and low art exist, with low art as a less refined version of high
art, which makes for a more harmonizing, assimilating culture of
various classes of people who generally affirm the same values.
This natural dynamic of assimilating
the new, the unfamiliar, with the old material of our experience,
validates the conservative philosophy in creativity.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment