“Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.” by Plato
To define what is art or what is not art is a kind of challenge that does not have any sort of relevance in it, as art is so personal that art approaches a thousand different individuals in a thousand different way.
In the age when music is digitized and the data that consists of zeros and ones are downloaded or received as a streaming data which doesn’t even stay in a hard drive or mp3 player, just mentioning the word “art” might not even feel like it has any relevance.
The form of art also has become so vague. Of course I am all for the naturally-arising argument that the vagueness could be translated as versatility. But asking ourselves, “when to use the word “vagueness” and when to use “versatility”, it will not be an easy answer, so the word “vagueness” might have more win than “versatility”.
I am not writing these to repent the art has been fading or even dead.
On the contrary, to me, art has not changed even a bit in spite of all those changes in the technology and the society.
Because, we, our inner-self, have not changed. No one can ever describe what the inner-self is by words. It is for sure, though, that art talks to our inner-self, and when it did, we have this special feeling of our inner-self smiling deep inside of us. It does not matter if this art is like a therapeutic music or extremely avant-garde. This inner-self smile is so effortless and natural that it does not require any understanding or training to be able to feel it.
I came across with a beautiful quote of Mr. Glenn Gould posted on Facebook by one of my former colleague and a pianist/composer Mr. Neil Olmstead, which read, “I believe that the justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenalin but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity”
That’s why art can talk to our inner-self, and when it did, our inner-self smiles back.
“everyone becomes a poet”
The Plato’s quote is clearly a metaphor. Plato might not have intended to point us to the insights of music by this quote.
But so what!
When I read it I think of music and art.