Exercise 4.1. Look again at Alfred Barras chart for Cubism and Abstract Art and say briefly how it might be understood as information in a system. Briefly compare it to Minard`s chart.

Both charts can be understood as «information in a system» as they both had been created within a social context, which included the following:

• They are both « maps » showing the development of certain events as « paths » of one event leading to another, course of events and their directions; they both are very much like « road maps »;
• They both contain geographical information such as cities and towns. Minard’s map contained more of this kind of information – names of rivers, temperature, number of soldiers remaining;
• They both contain a reference to timeline of events- specific years;
• They both had been created for a specific time horizon;
• They both can be characterised as a visual display, visual demonstration of information, data;

Thus they both have been created within a system characterised by a certain period of time, containing specific data and information about certain events and their developmental trajectory; They make sense only within the scope of the above-mentioned information and can not be understood without the specific context.

Ordinary delay: The Primitive.

Social context.

Exercise 4.2. Read the text of Newman`s essay in Art in Theory and write a short summary (200 words).

Barnett Newman’s essay in Art in Theory, I have found as one of the most exciting and appealing points of view on Art and on existential problems of humanity. Moreover, I haven’t met often the point of view which would proclaim Art (in its broadest sense) as an ultimate goal and meaning of human’s life on Earth. According to Newman, a human is hardwired for creativity and «…The artistic act is man’s birthright. » (Newman, p.593). Making Art is the purest form of creativity power any human entitled. Interestingly, Newman brings ancient religious texts as a supporting argument to his theory, which is: the purpose of life, the meaning of human’s existence, can not be reduced just to social life, implementing a social role. He says (p.593) «It was inconceivable to the archaic writer that original man, that Adam, was put on earth to be a toiler, to be a social animal » or «The earliest written history of human desires proves that the meaning of the world cannot be found in the social act ». For many of us, these texts don’t possess any scientific=compelling value, which bothers Newman, who finds «science » and a «scientific approach » as too much domineering in modern conscience. In contrast, science still fails to explain the main question – the origin of life or where the DNA’s information comes from.

I agree with Newman when he points out that science, being so insufficient and ineffective in explaining things, looks down to theology and faith in God, pretends in total delusion to have an exclusive right to define and discover whatever comes into human existence. However, I would like to extend Newman’s idea about the role of Art and Creativity in our lives. I also observe human creativity as a driving force behind the most prominent and not so notable events and happenings in our individual and collective existence. Being creative and making Art can not be reduced just to the creation of visual arts, and I think Newman didn’t mean it. Humans create different objects and pursue different activities which are not directly related to any form of conventional Art; they apply science and invent things, do business and organise events because they have an idea. Still, the initial and original, primordial impulse, a creative spark or urge, always comes first before any scientific knowledge or practicality. I think Newman is right when he says that creative urge is a unique feature of a human’s existence, and that is why creativity, being a creator, is a meaning of life for a human.

Bibliography:

1. The First Man was an Artist, 1992, Barnett Newman, reprinted in Art in Theory, 1900-1990, An Anthology of Changing Ideas, edited by Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, 1992, Blackwell Oxford UK & Cambridge USA, online on http://www.monoskop.org, (accessed online on July 1st, 2021);
2. Barnett Newman, American Painter, Editors of The Art Story, online on http://www.theartstory.com, (accessed on July 1st, 2021);

Below I put some of Newman`s ideas I have found as very much appealing to me and important.

« The basis of an aesthetic act is the pure idea. But the pure idea is, of necessity, an aesthetic act. Here then is the epistemological paradox that is the artist’s problem. Not space cutting nor space building, not construction nor fauvist destruction; not the pure line, straight and narrow, nor the tortured line, distorted and humiliating; not the accurate eye, all fingers, nor the wild eye of dream, winking; but the idea-complex that makes contact with mystery – of life, of men, of nature, of the hard, black chaos that is death, or the grayer, softer chaos that is tragedy. For it is only the pure idea that has meaning. Everything else has everything else. » (p.590)

« In the last sixty years, we have seen mushroom a vast cloud of ‘sciences’ in the fields of culture, history, philosophy, psychology, economics, politics, aesthetics, in an ambitious attempt to claim the non-material world. Why the invasion? Is it out of fear that its materialistic interpretation of physical phenomena, its narrow realm of physics and chemistry, may give science a minor historical position if, in the larger attempt to resolve the metaphysical mysteries, the physical world may take only a small place? Has science, in its attempt to dominate all realms of thought, been driven willy nilly to act politically so that, by denying any place to the metaphysical world, it could give its own base of operations a sense of security? Like any state or church, science found the drive to conquer necessary to protect the security of its own state of physics. To accomplish this expansion, the scientist abandoned the revolutionary scientific act for a theological way of life». (P.591)

« We cannot excuse the abdication of its primal scientific responsibility because paleontology substituted the sentimental ques- tion who for the scientific what. Who cares who he was? What was the first man, was he a hunter, a toolmaker, a farmer, a worker, a priest, or a politician? Undoubtedly the first man was an artist. » (p.593)

« A science of paleontology that sets forth this proposition can be written if it builds on the postulate that the aesthetic act always precedes the social one. The totemic act of wonder in front of the tiger-ancestor came before the act of murder. It is important to keep in mind that the necessity for dream is stronger than any utilitarian need. In the language of science, the necessity for understanding the unknowable comes before any desire to discover the unknown. » (p.593)

« The God image, not pottery, was the first manual act. It is the materialistic corruption of present-day anthropology that has tried to make men believe that original man fashioned pottery before he made sculpture. Pottery is the product of civilization. The artistic act is man’s personal birth- right. » (p.593)

« The earliest written history of human desires proves that the meaning of the world cannot be found in the social act. An examination of the first chapter of Genesis offers a better key to the human dream. It was inconceivable to the archaic writer that original man, that Adam, was put on earth to be a toiler, to be a social animal. The writer’s creative impulses told him that man’s origin was that of an artist and he set him up in a Garden of Eden close to the Tree of Knowledge, of right and wrong, in the highest sense of divine revelation. »(p. 594)

« In our inability to live the life of a creator can be found the meaning of the fall of man. It was a fall from the good, rather than from the abundant, life. And it is precisely here that the artist today is striving for a closer approach to the truth concerning original man than can be claimed by the paleontologist, for it is the poet and the artist who are concerned with the function of original man and who are trying to arrive at his creative state. What is the raison d’etre, What is the explanation of the seemingly insane drive of man to be painter and poet if it is not an act of defiance against man’s fall and an assertion that he return to the Adam of the Garden of Eden? For the artists are the first men ».(p.594);