I was looking for a fun thing to have on in the background while working on a drawing and stumbled upon a relatively new Japanese manga type serial. While it might not be what I seek, I paused it to write something here and saw the screen. On the screen was a cartoon rendition of Klimt’s famous painting of Hamlet and Ophelia, some have referred to it simply as the Kiss. His time in history is not that far removed from another Artist who did a famous work called “the Kiss,” the sculptor Rodin. In the cartoon, The Male kisser looked to be a blue alien of some sort. It had the gold and the quilt like patterns. I admit, I was happy to see it. It brings a context of Art that has stood at least a century as an inspiring and iconic image. To see that incorporated into modern culture proves how important our Artistic heritage is to us.
But we must not relegate Art to history. Art is alive and moving. Its artifacts may impact us indefinitely until they, or we, are no more, but it’s influence, the energy of its creation evolves us. We need it more, we need to create it deeply and exploratively now, as we need to grow from the artifacts of the past. I became sure of my place in Art, and Art’s place in Humanity, through Art history. I loved learning of of the collective and individual journeys embodied in articles of creation. I love seeing the deep, provocative evolutions of seeing and thinking discovered in some of our most treasured, and some no so treasured, works of Art. But I love l=making work that has a chance to mean something to someone is the now, the truth of Art present. And that’s not history.