The Logic of Arts In response to About Snail

Text:K.Black

Arts and science were two inseparable faculties in the development of Western culture. Arts was regarded a means to demonstrate Truth of the universe. Thus, painting was once infused with optical studies and the theory of perspective was established, which influenced not only the course of painting, but also the development of architecture and mechanics etc. artists then were likely scientists as well. At that time, truth was regarded absolute and nonnegotiable.

The logic of painting began to change with the coming of the modern era, from a objective outlook to a subjective viewpoint, from optical accuracy to articulation of impression, from pragmatic to art-for-arts-sake. Sociologist and Philosopher Habermas argues that arts have its own logic different from that of science and economy and that only with a balanced focus on the three logics can the society operate healthily and harmoniously. The logic of science refers to the cause and effect lineal reasoning; that of economy address the greatest profitability whereas the logic of arts emphasizes love in a humanistic sense.

The stage is an artist’s drawing board to show what s/he envisage in and about life. The stage is also a dream factory, which produces fantasies impossible in daily life. While it does not alienate from reality, it does not copy direct from life. It shows a reality different from the routine reality we live in day in day out. It is at once real at once illusive and also full of imagination.

One of the forerunners of abstract painting Pablo Picasso believed that his paintings are more close to reality than the realistic ones in the sense that his paintings show the various facets of an object that are present and essential. for those who insist to see from a single perspective, Picasso’s paintings are hard to make sense. The reality on stage, as theatre director and theorist Richard Schechner puts it, is not linear but rhythmic, like dance.

The author of About Snail on the July Issue analyzed the dance in respect with the time logic and suggested the choreographers to have a more coherent logic structure. I reckon that the logic the author referred to is the linear scientific logic. I have not objections to works that are underlined by well defined logic structures. However, to employ it as a criterion of appreciation or guideline for creation is a shot on the wrong target that will only sabotage the nature and meaning of art.The interchange of different times and spaces is not feasible in the logic of science but arts can compensate what the former is incapable of. It will be farcical to try to impose the linear way of scientific thinking onto art creation.