Society strives for, thrives on, and is yet deprived of a certain authenticity in the fine arts. Nowadays more than ever do we, as creativity-seeking, criticism-spitting human beings, long to see an artist--a fine artist--step up and prove that he is true to himself in the creation of his work. How can such an artist prove himself, though, when our society has set such unreachable prerequisites that an aspiring artist must attain, brandish and expose to the world before he may be dubbed a true artist? There is a list (one that varies in what it comprises depending on who you ask) of requirements for someone to become a successful artist. Even when following the to-do list, though, countless contestants either get booted out of the competition because they don't exceed the presentation of a select few or they simply drop out due to sheer frustration toward the art world and its ambiguity.
Not only is there a great ambiguity in the field of fine art, but there is also the factor of where we are in time. It is the twenty-first century. So much art has come and gone through the ages and because of our records of such art, we know what has already been accomplished. We know the true artists of history. From the great Michelangelo Caravaggio and his Captivating David with the Head of Goliath in the early 1600s, to the eventually blind Claude Monet with his subtly beautiful Water Lilies in 1906, to the fantastic (and my all-time favorite) Salvador Dali with his enthralling Temptation of St. Anthony in 1946, the fame has been claimed and rightly so. Our world, however, cannot function properly without art, so the aspiring artists scattered across the globe have reason for hope. It's all a matter of coming up with something that pushes the definition of art. It's a matter of the artist finding something deep within himself that differs from others' views and to expose that inner self to the world, because the world needs art to give meaning to our surroundings. Andrew Potter, in his book The Authenticity Hoax: How We Get Lost Finding Ourselves, speaks of Western culture and its obsession with authenticity as of late and how that obsession came to life:
"We have followed the turn in Western culture that began with an initial, visceral reaction against the three pillars of the modern world: spiritual disenchantment, political liberalism, and the growth of the market economy. As we traced it through the thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, this reaction gave rise to the ideal of authenticity, which culminated in a celebration of spontaneity, emotional transparency, and a fixation on the creative powers of the individual to provide meaning in a world that otherwise offers none" (Potter 78).
Potter distinguishes between two types of authenticity in the art world; there is authenticity-as-provenance and authenticity-as-artistic-expression (79). Although society cringes at mock-artists (those who can recreate a work of art without any differences detectable to the naked eye), the real concern, surprisingly, is the "discrepancy between what the artist seems to be doing and what he or she is actually up to. That is, we look at a work and wonder whether the work is a true expression of the artist's self, her vision, her ideals, or perhaps her community, culture, or 'scene'" (Potter 78). Society wants to know that what an artist expresses through his art is what he feels inside.
So one may think it would be pretty easy for an aspiring artist who believes in himself and what he aims to express to become a world-renowned legend, some day destined to sit on a cloud with da Vinci, Picasso, et cetera. The difficulty, though, lies with producing something new, novelty. We want nouveau art, but not art nouveau because that's been done. Sure, we love to see a true artist who creates mainly for himself, but that matters not one bit if his stuff looks exactly like everything else being pushed in our faces by commercialized artists. This is where the to-do list comes into play, and Charles Pearson has laid out that list for us in six steps. An aspiring artist must have an artistic style and he must choose a related medium that makes delving into the style more accessible. He must then practice the medium, which includes studying other successful artists in that medium. After essentially "perfecting" the first combination, he must choose an audience that would most likely appreciate his work. Choosing the audience is not enough on its own, though; the artist needs exposure. He must find ways to push his art in view of his intended audience as much as possible without shoving it down unwilling throats. After (supposedly) appealing to his intended audience, the artist must find a way to sell his art. Marketing is key if someone intends to make a living off of his art. The trickiest part is the final step, though. An artist is not protected from the shifting market. What people like--trends--change and transform far too quickly for an artist to keep up with it all, but if he decides to stand stagnant as a one hit wonder, he risks boring his clients and losing publicity, thus losing popularity, thus losing his livelihood (Pearson).
I've asked myself in the past, "How, in our currently kitsch-infatuated world, could someone stand out as an up-and-coming promising, authentic artist?" First, there needs to be an understanding that not everyone who produces this recent kitschy form of art is a sell-out. Many of the artists who create such work thoroughly enjoy it and believe that they are expressing themselves through it. The problem is that so many people have jumped on the bandwagon that in order to prove himself to be great, an aspiring artist must show that he is multi-faceted. This, in no way, means that he must copy an artist and show that he can produce what the public loves along with what he loves. Nominal authenticity--"defined simply as the correct identification of origins, authorship, or provenance of an object" (Dutton around pg. 265)--still counts for something, and society doesn't like a copycat, no matter how talented he is. According to Dennis Dutton:
"Establishing nominal authenticity serves purposes more important than maintaining the market value of an art object; it enables us to understand the practice and history of art as an intelligible history of the expression of values, beliefs, and ideas, both for artists and their audiences - and herein lies its link to expressive authenticity" (Dutton 269 or 270).
So if an artist can replicate a Vermeer to perfection, that shows craftsmanship but explains nothing of his own beliefs and values. And those beliefs and values are really what society longs to catch, hold onto and preserve for as long as possible. The task is for an aspiring artist to both showcase his craftsmanship as well as expose his deeper self through visual expression. If at all possible, the artist should make himself recognizable in some form or fashion. Hans Abbing states that authentic artists often times do possess that elusive trait of individuality:
"A work of art and its maker are said to be authentic. In a formal sense, they are authentic if the artist in question is the only one who could have made the particular work of art. A unique fingerprint of the artist somehow manages to creep into the work of art, its style, the signature or some other quality. In expressionist works of art the personal touch is very visible; people 'recognize' the artist in the work of art. In other works of art this quality seems more hidden; in fact, so much so that sometimes only the artist's signature can be verified as genuine" (Abbing 25).
What Abbing is saying, then, is that it sort of is up to the artist, as an individual, to decide whether or not he wants to make a mark on his work that is more prominent than a scribble that represents his name. An artist must decide how he wants the world to perceive his art versus how he wants the world to perceive him.
Knowing that authenticity is entirely possible and that people appreciate it, aspiring artists must also know that although "the arts is all very exciting stuff, you have to earn a living as well," states Brennan in "Selling Art Without Selling Out" in the Irish Times. So many people believe that artists create art merely for themselves or as gifts for others, but those many people are entirely wrong. Although artists get great joy out of the completion of a wonderful piece, they--just like everyone else on Earth--require money in order to function in society. Sadly enough, in order to make money, sometimes an artist must push his authenticity aside and create for the masses what they desire in general. Abbing brings up the point that "art is what people call art" but that "contradicting views exist on what art is, and this does not help in the construction of a timeless definition of art" (Abbing 19). So an artist who wants to make a living off of his art must a least slightly bend to please the crowd. This issue is that one can never be entirely sure of what the crowd wants. An artist kind of has to give in and create pieces that he may not necessarily like or enjoy creating because he has to find a way to a) make money and b) broaden his audience so that he gains the popularity that he needs in order to survive as an artist.
This, however, is where the vicious downward spiral begins. An artist creates art because it's what he loves to do--it's his passion. People want to pursue careers that they will enjoy, so naturally an artist wants to make money off of his art because not only does he get the monetary compensation for his hard work, but he also receives gratitude from those who can't produce the magnificence that he can. To stay in business, though, he must please a certain amount of clients and that almost always means having to produce work that doesn't really speak for who the artist is. He has to do it, though, so he can make money to buy supplies for the work he holds so dear to his heart. Eventually, however, he becomes tired of making pieces that everyone enjoys except for him, and his motivation to truly create begins to diminish. In the end, it's very possible and today, even plausible, that he ends up solely producing people pleaser pieces and abandons where his heart used to be. This sort of series of events can lead to not only sadness, but to a complete contempt for the art world, when that world used to be such a beautiful, open place. The more that artists force themselves into this sort of slavery that requires them to produce copies of what already exists, the less likely we are to find that authentic artist who speaks to us by speaking for himself. The most recent gem in the world of the arts is masked street artist, Banksy, who happens to feel just as strongly about this issue as I do. He is a brilliant British artist who masks himself so that he doesn't undermine his art by showing the world the face of the creator. He believes in the truth that should be in art. He believes in the meaning of art and the expression through it, but he understands that art has lately lost its meaning in so many cases. "I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that so much any more" (Banksy 2010). His recent lack of faith in people is proof that even the artists notice the loss of originality, the abandonment of deeper meaning in the arts.
It turns out that the problem isn't whether or not an artist is capable of exuding authenticity today--it is difficult due to the fact that so much has already been done--but rather the problem is whether or not the world will let artists BE ARTISTS. There are so many sources, especially on the internet, that prove that true artists most definitely still exist today and that they are able to make a living for themselves off of what they love to do, but they are the lucky ones. For the most part, it's a sad bunch of kids whose dreams are sure to die sooner rather than later because they understand that for most of the candidates, there isn't a chance in Hell that they will make it as a big artist. The world is too constricting. The world doesn't know what it's losing.
If the artists could see the snake that the world has turned itself into and if they could see how it (the world) is tightly squeezing the life out of all of them, they could look around and maybe try to find some poppies to feed to this soul-destroying serpent to get it to relax and let the artists do their thing. The aspiring artists so desperately need to be able to perform even the smallest deeds that show originality and authenticity, and they need to pat themselves on the back every time they're able to accomplish such a thing because of how rare that is nowadays. As Ralph Waldo Emerson suggested, I too implore the artists of today: "Adhere to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a decorous age."
The world needs to let artists have some room to breathe, because their air has been so clouded by outside, extraneous sources that they've lost sight of what art is supposed to be and what it's supposed to do. It needs its meaning back.
