Obscurity in the Arts

Robert Frost mentioned that it is absolutely necessary to experiment with your artistic style and form. His poem "The Road not Taken" makes this point quite clear:


Robert Frost's "The Road not Taken"

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Most artists begin with an already established form and style and then diverge from that point, so this means that you could challenge your present artistic method, and venture into undiscovered territory. I picture myself walking through a cave, with club and torch in hand, seeking for a new wall to paint my new experiences onto. Remember you are creating a new work, not copying other's works. You may use the starting point as I have already mentioned, but you need to make it your own. If your chosen starting point is abstract and less interactive you might want to take it to another level and make it less abstract by making areas of your creation more apparent, more interactive.

Some forms and styles chosen are unmistakable. You can not hide the fact that your poem, painting, or movie clip is hiding something from the reader or viewer. A rhyme is rhyme, realism can be surreal, and two dimensional flat painted objects are definitely abstract. You may want to hide some aspects of your narrative or you may want to reveal much or most of it. The creativity is yours to do with what you so desire. Its your art, make it yours.

Here are a few examples of what I have discussed so far:

Poetry –

"In "The Yale Review", V79, N2 (p.210), Mary Jo Salter
suggested the term 'Accordion Rhyme' for the easily
missed effect in "Sandpiper" by Elizabeth Bishop:

"The word is a mist. And then the world is
minute and vast and clear...

... The millions of grains are black, white, tan and gray,
mixed with quartz grains, rose and amethyst"

( "Obscure Forms", by Tim Love, blog - July 2000, http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~tpl/texts/valueforms.html )


Painting –



State (1963), by Robert Rauschenberg,
Oil and Silkscreen Ink on Canvas. 243.8 x 177.8 cm.
Philadelphia Museum of Art.


Movie Clip –



"Hospital puppet sequence from the movie Frida" - by Brothers Quay

To prove my point I will use the quote by Rene Descartes "Cogito, ergo sum" (English: "I think, therefore I am"). The idea originated with Plato who spoke about the "Knowledge of knowledge", and with Aristotle who embellished upon Plato's thoughts:

"But if life itself is good and pleasant (...) and if one who sees is conscious that he sees, one who hears that he hears, one who walks that he walks and similarly for all the other human activities there is a faculty that is conscious of their exercise, so that whenever we perceive, we are conscious that we perceive, and whenever we think, we are conscious that we think, and to be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious that we exist... "(Nicomachean Ethics, 1170a25 ff.)

...So therefore, whatever our conscious perceives very likely could exist. If one were to think of a two dimensional plane of existence like portions of Rauschenberg's painting above, there is a distinct possibility of its existence, that is, if we use the same reasoning that Plato and Aristotle have. Our perceptions for art can be brought to fruition in what ever media we choose to express them in. So 'the road less traveled' can produce concepts that have either never existed before, or have existed, but we have only now discovered them. All it takes is making the obscure more apparent, or the apparent less apparent.