Art and Music v Lunacy
When I was a boy my Dad and Mom would take my brother and me to the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Detroit Historical Museum, the Detroit Public Library, or the Ford Auditorium. We would go to see exhibits of great artists at the DIA, go to hear small concerts at the library on Sunday afternoons, or listen to the DSO at Ford Auditorium. I had parents who knew the substantive contribution that the arts and music have on individuals and how each give meaning and purpose to life. Through these early exposures I learned how art and music assist in forming connections between seemingly disparate people, or events, or issues, or things.
Those trips to those iconic buildings, and what I saw and heard within their walls, created impressions on me that continue to shape my outlook on life. The murals depicting Detroit Industry by Diego Rivera. My first hearing of Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre du Printemps.” Hearing the simplicity and beauty of Chopin Preludes or Bach’s Inventions. Checking out my first book by Hemingway at the library. Walking the cobblestoned streets of Detroit, as it was, at the Detroit Historical Museum. Exhibitions at the DIA of Monet, John Singer Sargent, N.C. Wyeth, and Andrew Wyeth.
In combination with growing up in a house surrounded by art, music, literature, and the sciences those ventures became the seminal foundations of later discoveries. Discoveries like hearing the explosion of new music in the 1960’s and 1970’s performed at the Grande Ballroom, the Eastown Theater, the Something Different, the Ark in Ann Arbor, the Birmingham Palladium, and so many other venues in and around the Detroit area. And those fostered my deep dive into the worlds of rock, blues, and jazz.
Life is reflected and altered by art and music. We see it in paintings. We hear it in music and lyrics. We read it in poetry, short stories, articles, and novels. We watch and hear it on screens and on stages. We watch it in the movement of dance. Sometimes the reflections are deliberately obscured and their true meanings do not come to light in our minds until time passes. Other times the reflection is as overt as looking in a mirror as it reveals the world as it is. We revel in it; we are repulsed by it.
“Forget about party politics — liberals, conservatives, and all. What America yearns for is a leader with the integrity to tell the truth. And the charisma to make people listen, and the guts to act on it.”
That line is from an episode of the CBS program, “Madam Secretary.” In the episode the characters are dealing with issues of nationalism, hate, greed, the ever present Washington game of quid-pro-quo, and the climate crisis. Sound familiar? To this writer it is a summation and a reflection of reality.
Though these words are uttered by fictional characters they make me wonder if we have ever had that level of integrity and tenaciousness in any modern leader; one who is willing to sacrifice their position of power; to fight without fear of reprisal for their citizens? Not in my lifetime. At least, not yet.
Why the diatribe on politicians and politics in this post about art and music?
Because the portrayal of power and the power one group holds over another is depicted, in this thing we call the human condition, through art and music. In that way they are inseparable.
If art were a two sided coin, one side would represent fantasy while the other reality. If the subject of the fantasy side is political in nature, then the portrayal might be a benevolent leader — a person of high ideals and a desire to create a utopian world; a bastion of freedom. I have always thought of these depictions as our collective cries for justice, equality, and fairness. These idealistic characterizations of fictional leaders are presented in ways that make us believe in possibility. Or they make us reflect on getting back to a society that, in reality, has never really existed, except in the world presented on that side of the coin.
Then there is the other side of the art coin. That is the side that makes us face the here and now and the reality of history not compromised by ideological sources. All present to, hopefully, help us understand our fate. “What America yearns for is a leader with the integrity to tell the truth. And the charisma to make people listen, and the guts to act on it.” At this moment in time, and in history, that line is accurate.
The greatest attribute of art and music is that they present both sides of the coin: the fantasy and the reality. It is up to us to interpret the meaning; to either revel in it or be repulsed by it. Or both.
In early November, 2024, an election will inform us, as well as most other societies on this planet, if we are going to have a chance at surviving the world that we have all had a hand in creating. As with art and music, this election is reflection of reality, fantasy, hope, and despair.
I’ll leave you with this. In the end, no matter the outcome of the election and regardless of your particular ideologies, what will survive us as a nation, as a world, and as a species will be our art and music. They are the only things of value we humans have ever produced of lasting beauty and, along with the art of architecture, the only things that will outlast us.
Make art and music. Not lunacy.
