Art form

The philosophers tell us that art consists essentially, not in performing a moral act,
but in making a thing, a work, in making an object with a view not to the human
good of the agent, but to the exigencies and the proper good of the object to be
made, and by employing ways of realization predetermined by the nature of the
object in question.
Art thus appears as something foreign in itself to the sphere of the human good,
almost as something inhuman, and whose exigencies nevertheless are absolute:
for, needless to say, there are not two ways of making an object well, of realizing
well the work one has conceived -- there is but one way, and it must not be
missed.
The philosophers go on to say that this making activity is principally and above all
an intellectual activity. Art is a virtue of the intellect, of the practical intellect, and
may be termed the virtue proper to working reason.
But then, you will say, if art is nothing other than an intellectual virtue of making,
whence comes its dignity and its ascendancy among us? Why does this branch of
our activity draw to it so much human sap? Why has one always and in all peoples
admired the poet as much as the sage?
It may be answered first that to create, to produce something intellectually, to
make an object rationally constructed, is something very great in the world: for
man this alone is already a way of imitating God. And I am speaking here of art in
general, such as the ancients understood it -- in short, of art as the virtue of the
artisan.
But where the maker of works especially becomes an imitator of God, where the
virtue of art approaches the nobility of things absolute and self-sufficient, is in that
family of arts which by itself alone constitutes a whole spiritual world, namely the
fine arts.
There are two things to be considered here. On the one hand, whatever the nature
and the utilitarian ends of the art envisaged, it participates by its object in
something superhuman, since it has as its object to create beauty. Is not beauty a
transcendental, a property of being, one of the Divine Names? "The being of all
things derives from the Divine Beauty," says Saint Thomas. In this respect, then,
the artist imitates God, Who made the world by communicating to it a likeness of
His beauty.
...The architect, by the disposition he knows,
Buildeth the structure of stone like a filter in the waters of the Radiance of God,
And giveth the whole building its sheen as to a pearl.
On the other hand, to create a work of beauty is to create a work on which shines
the radiance or the splendor, the mystery of a form, in the metaphysical sense of
this word, of a ray of intelligibility and truth, of an irradiation of the primal
brilliance. And no doubt the artist perceives this form in the created world, whether
exterior or interior: he does not discover it complete in the sole contemplation of
his creative spirit, for he is not, like God, the cause of things. But it is his eye and
his spirit that have perceived and uncovered it; and it must itself be alive within
him, must have taken on human life in him, must live in his intelligence with an
intellectual life and in his heart and his flesh with a sensitive life, in order for him
to be able to communicate it to matter in the work he makes.
Thus the work bears the mark of the artist; it is the offspring of his soul
and his spirit.

Art And Life

Art is life, not something to be placed in a shrine and substituted for life.
Actually, art is an effort to create, besides the real world, a more human
entity. Moreover, a true work of art is but a shadow of the divine
perfection. Indeed, even those who regard art as an ideal and artists as
idealists cannot deny that art is a faithful mirror of the life and civilization
of a period.
Everyone concedes what Nehru said that Indian civilization of the past
periods was full of life; it created things of beauty, the arts flourished, and
the echoes reached distant countries. Nehru was also stating the reality
when he said that the art of a people is a true mirror of their minds. Both
arts and crafts have indeed close connections with life; there is no line of
demarcation between arts, crafts and life when the arts have really been
an integral constituent of the people's daily existence.
Obviously, it is impossible to separate art, or the arts, from life; they are a
part and parcel of it. The idea can also be expressed by saying that when
life declines and the standards of living deteriorate, art also declines. On
the other hand, when life marks an upward swing and shows all-round
improvement, such a un swing inevitably gets reflected in the arts.
It is during the regimes of eminent influential kings and emperors,
Maharajas and Nawabs in history, especially during the Golden Age, that
the arts, such as painting, music, since and crafts of various types
prospered. Who bothers about art and the artists when there is poverty
and destitution all round, when the rulers are constantly engaged in
internecine warfare or struggles for power during which art is the first
casualty?
This is also true of the age of exploitation, colonial, imperial or other.
To say that art is only confined to the artist the painter, the sculptor, the
dancer, the musician, the singer or other craftsman is to take a needlessly
rigid and restricted view. Real art is all-round illumination and adds stature
to life. The object of art, it has been well said, is to crystallize human
emotions into thought, and then fix it in a concrete form.
After all, painter thinks, reflects for a long time, tries to imagine
something good and great, has a vision or a dream, and then draws a
picture, a drawing or moulds clay or metal into a figure he has dreamed or

thought of. Since dreams, thoughts and visions are all a part of our life, art
is also very much a part of our existence.
Even the illusions, which often get reflected in masterpieces of art, can be
entertained only by human beings of talent and cannot, therefore be
separated from life.
An unfortunate aspect of life in the modern world is that misconceptions
about art and artists, and about their role, have been spreading fast.
Anyone, it is said, who finds a way to make a lamp or some other artistic
piece out of a Camp-Cola bottle gets more protection than a humble man
who creates a work of real art.
There is indeed a distortion of values in the world of art; really talented
artists often starve because of the lack of patronage by those who lead a
life devoted to un artistic activity. An artist who revolts against man's fate
in life may or may not get adequate encouragement. Moreover, what
passes for "art" in today's world may in reality be fraud or cheap imitation
of a masterpiece.
Again, is it not true that the measure of the creator is the amount of life
he puts into his work. A real work of art has to be full of life; if it is lifeless
and soulless or dull, it evidently lacks life.
Who can deny that a painting or a piece of sculpture has great appeal if it
is life-like, emanating vigour and activity and if it inspires human feelings?
Besides, the real artist is he who does not cater to cheap tastes or
panders to the low, in human or base instincts of men and women. If an
artist sells himself for the baser things, he is a traitor to art.
True art grasps, rediscovers and reveals to us reality which human beings
tend to forget and from which we often seek to get away. Often the reality
is harsh; even that serves as a reminder of what we are prone to ignore.
When the reality is pleasant and artistic creations please, we begin to
appreciate art, not otherwise.
Art, like most human beings, is temperamental; it is no secret that artists,
poets and musicians work when they get the requisite inspiration.
Dictation and imposition of authority are what art and artists firmly resent.
In this sense art is an intense form of individualism. Even so, art should
never seek popularity; on the contrary the people should try to value art
and make themselves artistic as far as they can.
Life itself is an art, and though artists and poets may seem visionaries,
they have a specific and distinct role to play. The irony, however, is that if

art and artists continue to live in a world of their own, far removed from
life, they may have to starve unless they are able to get permanent and
affluent patrons.
Art and artists are now being patronized and encouraged by the
Government of India and the State Governments. But official patronage
alone cannot be a lasting guarantee of the prosperity of art; the people
themselves must learn to appreciate art in whichever form it comes
before them.
Life itself is an art. The swing of the pendulum may raise art to the skies
or bring it down crashing to the earth. Experimentation is what art thrives
on, and such experimentation, as in science, ultimately proves highly
beneficial to society. The progress in art reveals the progress of a country
and its innermost character. The relationship is, therefore, intimate and is
becoming increasingly obvious.

Animation is Art: Seriously!

One of the things that bothers me the most about animation is that, at least in
America, people have a strong tendency to dismiss anything animated as
Cartoons, as no more than entertainment for children. It makes it hard to
discuss anime when people immediately write you off for watching cartoons,
not to mention thinking less of you (Dork, loser, etc). We're not going to get
into the sections of anime fandom about which they, you know, have a point
(Naruto); this is about the art form in general.
So, if I'm going to be writing about things like animation, I might as well start
off by talking about why animation is worth talking about.
First off, I've repeatedly encountered two popular false assumptions about
animation:
1. Animation is somehow less viable as a form of artistic expression than any
other medium.
2. Animation is a genre, not a medium.
3. Animation is for children.
All we have to do to see why these are untrue is to break down animation as
an art form. Animation is created by stringing together images at a certain
high number of images per second (24-30 depending on whether the work in
question is cinema or television). Using persistence of vision, these
independent images appear to move (or are animated, as in, still images are
given life or spirit). On top of this, there are usually sounds added to this music and often voices.
If this sounds familiar, you know something about cinema. Indeed, animation is

part of cinema. The technical aspects of any given movie or television show
are identical between animation and live-action, save for one point: the nature
of the images. In one, the images are hand-drawn, whereas in the other, they
are photographic. That's it. Technically speaking, that's the difference
between The Lion King and The Godfather.
So the issue of live-action vs. animation is, when boiled down, one of
photography vs. drawing. Now, I don't think anyone would credit either of
those two art forms as being more or less artistic than the other - and if they
did, I can see more arguments for drawing or painting being more artistic than
photography. So why is that when you take the two of them, and bring them to
life in the same manner, them put them back next to each other, one is
suddenly worth less than the other?
The answer, of course, is that it's not. Animation is not a subset of cinema:
Cinema is animation. Animation of drawings or animation of photography, but
animation all the same. They are part and parcel part of the same medium,
and you cannot discard one and keep the other. For both Animated and Liveaction films, what you have is a conglomeration of classical art forms, including
literature, drama, music, drawing, even architecture, sculpture, and dance to
certain degrees.
And let's not forget the increasing presence of computer animation in films live-action and animated alike. Films like theLord of the Rings and Star
Wars trilogies are as much or more animation than live-action film - the battle
scenes and armies, all the CG effects and characters. What about Beowulf, a
fully computer-animated movie animated around real performances? Where
does one draw the line? Who can even say when that line is only going to
become more and more blurry as technology gets better and better?
At any rate, let me skip to the third point for a moment: Animation is for
children. If we follow the previous discussion, it should be easy to see that
there is nothing inherent in the medium of animation that makes it more fit for
consumption by children than adults. No more than live-action movies are for
adults moreso than children. And yet, most of the animation in America is
indeed for children. What gives?
The problem is not in the medium itself, but in how we use it. Here is the
second point: as far as American culture is concerned, animation is a genre,
not a medium. Let's take a look at how American culture uses animation:
Television animation: 2 categories
Children's cartoons (Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network)
Adult comedy (Family Guy, Simpsons, etc.)

Animated Feature Films: 1.5 categories (at best)

Children's / Family movies
A subset thereof: Children's / Family movies that adults can actually tolerate.
(I'm being kind by keeping this separate. The only thing that actually separates
these two is quality - the movies that are so bad that only a child could
appreciate it, and the movies that are actually good enough to be appreciated
as movies regardless of their being aimed at children. e.g. most Pixar.
This is an astonishingly narrow utilization of a full-fledged artistic medium.
When was the last time you saw a piece of American animation aimed at
adults that wasn't a zany comedy? A family drama, or an action-adventure, or
a serious romance?
When almost all of the mainstream animation in America consists of children's
shows (itself a sticky genre to define, these mostly characterized by being
vapid culture commercials) or "edgy" / "satirical" comedy like South Park or
Family Guy, can the consumers really be blamed for having formed such a
narrow opinion thereof?
Now, a little disclaimer: Animation is indeed well-suited to children's movies.
Talking animals, bright colors, and so on are easier to do (well) in
animation. Babe is a good example of how it could be done in live-action, but if
you look through Disney's animated feature catalogue, you can see that they
were using unique capabilities of the medium of animation to tell their stories
in a way that would have been impossible in live-action. This is, in itself, a
good thing.
Animation is also well-suited to zany comedies - by not having to work with live
actors, you can set up a joke however you want. Comedic timing, physical
comedy, cut-aways and over-the-top setups like are much easier to manipulate
when animated. Futurama, I think, is the best example of an animated comedy
that would be difficult to reproduce faithfully as a live-action show - imagine
Leela and Bender is people in costumes.
There's nothing wrong with using animation for some of the things it's good at.
However, when you limit it to that so rigorously, you do harm to the entire art
form. Cinema tends to truly excel past other media at telling realistic, personal
stories, because you can portray real people. But thankfully, cinema covers far
more bases than that, because people are willing to accept a whole slew of
genres and styles from cinema - an artistic freedom that Americans are
unwilling to grant animation.

So, how should we be using animation?

This is where I bring up Japan. Japanese culture has embraced the artistic
possibilities of animation on a level unheard of by any other mainstream
culture. The amount of animation produced, shown, sold and bought far and
away exceed any other culture's industry. And historically there's been a lot
more artistic freedom in the way they've used the medium.
Animation for children in Japan is still a large part of the market. However,
there's a huge array of animation produced for teenagers and adults as well,
and among any demographic, animation can be found in almost any genre.
Action, adventure, comedy, romance, slice-of-life, period drama, family drama,
science fiction, fantasy, crime, mystery, supernatural - the list goes on, and
that's not to mention the frequent cross-pollination.
For every show like, say, Sailor Moon, you have a show like Mushishi. Mushishi
would be best described as a cross between "Ghost Stories without the Ghosts"
and a "Supernatural Nature show." It's beautifully drawn and animated, scored
very subtly, and tells moving, human stories set in not-quite-human
circumstances.
For every show like Inuyasha, you have a show like Honey and Clover - a
simple, realistic, slice-of-life story about a group of friends in school.
Graduating and moving on to adulthood, finding your path in life, love and
friendship - a deeply human, realistic story.
The number shows with (often excessive) violence, sexual themes, complex
psychological aspects, and otherwise mature content is vast. An this is without
even mentioning animated pornography, as if you needed another example to
prove that in Japan, animation has, by its nature, nothing to do with children.
The overall quality, the American perception, and the rampant marketing
aspects of animation in Japan are topics for other posts. For now, we can look
at Japan and see that just because we only use animation for children's shows
and college-demo comedies in America and the west does not mean that's all
it's good for. So the next time you hear someone mention that animation is

fluff, or that it's for children, give 'em a good slap and tell them to sit back
and think about it for five minutes.