This philosophical dissertation explores the concept of art as a means to liberate oneself from the weight of reality through imagination, fantasy, and play.
Extract
[...] We are faced with a substitute. Also, the most successful art is the one that combines lightness and seriousness. Gravity is not excluded since lightness can highlight seriousness. [...]
[...] Thus, life is lighter. The famous painting of Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise (1872) founded reality in light and colors. The port of Le Havre is unrecognizable The ugliness of industry disappears in favor of a comforting impression of warm light. The utilitarian dimension no longer appears. In the Dance at the Moulin de la Galette, Renoir gives a happy vision of the world by softening the forms, playing with the light that gives the represented scene a magical dimension. Reality is magnified. [...]
[...] And it is precisely this contrast that makes their strength. Seriousness and lightness are not antithetical but complementary. The works of Paul Klee seem to respond to Nietzsche's statement: the drawings are naive, their playful and poetic dimension is not without depth since when looking at them, one is referred back, for example, to time. Senecio (1922) represents barely an old man: the style is geometric, the colors are vivid. Old age is thus seen under a joyful and light day. [...]
[...] One could find another meaning for it. Indeed, when he uses the 'double image', Dali often confronts one with the other to make an unexpected meaning emerge. Here, one can think that the Catalan painter opposes the rationality of Voltaire, a slave of classicism, to the unbridled imagination that is his trademark. In The Garden of Delights (c. 1490), Jérôme Bosch shows hybrid creatures, giant strawberries, and other strange forms. It is actually a denunciation of human vices. Thus, the strawberries symbolize carnal appetites. [...]
[...] The artist's reaction would not have been disavowed by Duchamp: 'Rather than eating the banana with its skin and tape, the visitor was content to consume the fruit.' The visitor would not have understood his 'gesture.' If we laugh, it's a yellow laugh that has nothing to do with the happiness that accompanies art according to Nietzsche. Art may then be nothing but a mystification. C - The risk of superficiality At the expense of seeking lightness, art may lose its depth even further. [...]
