This is a contemplation from me exactly a year ago when I was having a whole crisis about the future of art. Not that I’m not freaking out now; I just read more and developed some new perspectives. But I’ll save that for the next post. This is an ongoing dialogue with years to come.
For now, let’s hear what 15-year-old Lily has to say about her struggles with the future of art.
It is an artist’s fate to struggle. As an ardent artist myself, I can confirm that only about 10% of that confusion is technical; the rest are all consequences of my daily contemplations, summarized to one question: what is the future place and purpose of fine arts in our society?
Despite several twists and turns of purpose in the journey, visual art has influenced my life ever since I could remember. Blessed with an accurate eye from a young age, the goal of my artworks before turning 13 was easy and clear: to draw naturalistically. As I grew older, I became dissatisfied with creating copy-cat artworks and yearned for originality. This past year, I wanted to infuse “meaning and message” into every work. I applied more effort into creation than I had before, making myself meticulously plan out every piece before starting.
However, the process was so exhausting that for a while, creating quality art drained out all my desire to pick up a brush. I was very conflicted between producing “profound art” and “spontaneous art”, and demanded a correct motive to create as an artist. The more I thought about it, the more anxious I became about whether fine arts will really have a place in our modern society.
The Greeks wanted harmony, while the Baroque screamed dissonance; the Medieval demanded religion, while the Renaissance worshiped humanism. Each new period challenged the standards of the previous world to create a whole new vision of art. Following that pattern, we arrive at the Contemporary Art of the 21st century, which broke through every possible conservatism and advocated for diversity.
Which seems like a utopia for artists, except… What’s next? Our society today is as liberal as ever, and no more sore critics dare to label something as “Un-art” without being met with heavy criticism. However, I see this as inflation: when almost every sort of art is held valuable in its own way, no true value is assigned to any of them.
This is truly saddening for me because I believe art is a great manifestation of all the beautiful things in our world and deserves to continue its growth in the spotlight. I’m sure the 21st century would not be the end of the tunnel for fine arts, but as a perplexed and curious teenage artist, it would be reassuring and motivating to know the existence of a possible direction I could work towards.
So that one day, I could sit in the studio with the same conviction as Da Vinci or any great master knowing: I would be painting history.
