The Porcelain Painter

The Porcelain Painter, oil on panel, 13" x 12", Steven Rhude

 "Art has its origins in the gods and immortals. There is no one who has heard or seen them." - Xie He

I continue to harbour a private designation as to what is Art, and not a day goes by when I don't at some point ponder its mysterious equation. I've heard the implication that Art is everything and therefore Art is nothing, but that approach leaves me indifferent. There must be something to the idea that Art is a civilizing force - a symbolic language sprung from an immemorial past. Whatever it is, it continues to give me the chills when I do see it manifested in the flesh - before my very own eyes. Watching a woman paint vessels in Beijing with more skill than some art college graduates emerge with certainly got me thinking about her labour, and the beauty of her results. Day in and day out she paints, never the same way twice as one might imagine, but with an infinite variation of care applied to the volume of different shapes, cultural connotations, symbols, and motifs inherent in the vessel's design. This application constitutes her working day, and her working life.

Today, the art world seems preoccupied primarily with identity politics. “Today’s art world isn’t even contemptuous of old standards — it is wholly indifferent to them,” writes Sohrab Ahmari in this timely polemic, in which he writes passionately in defence of humane art and the critical standards once thought to be of supreme importance and permanence: “sincerity, formal rigour and cohesion, the quest for truth, the sacred and the transcendent.” http://quillette.com/2017/02/23/review-the-new-philistines/

Looking back however, in China, once writing was established, painting then came to birth. With the two modes of expression apparent - painting diverged from that of writing. The object being that writing would convey the meaning of things, and painting would depict them. Essentially this provided order in a world threatened by chaos.

 Yet still we continue to struggle with what Art is, but less and less now do we concern ourselves with the mystery of the origins of Art, let alone with the 'standards of supreme importance and permanence.' Possibly though, we sometimes need to look outside the institution to locate it, like an isolated factory perhaps, producing porcelain pots destined for trade that may provide an unconventional route to the answer.

Steven Rhude , Wolfville NS
www.stevenrhudefineart.com