Art as Redeemer

many will say that art is a way to let out anger; to rearrange subjective trauma in an effort to make it coherent and valuable. writing is therapy. its even a form of meditation (according to over-priced self-help books). it is self-help.

but i've always had trouble with this. is art only a form of therapy? if so, it fails to play any larger, cosmic role in mankind's history. art becomes a free therapist you can scribble on while he sits quietly and listens. I've been troubled by the idea. it seems to diminish art.

what's more, it seems to posit that all we do is spill our feelings and watch them flourish, without any real intellectual work. this is far from the case, as we know. take writing, for example: there's editing, submitting to publishers, grovelling over plot and character errors. there is--in essence--an entire life to it. painting is similar: there is the picking of right colors, symmetry, symbolism, metaphor. its a network of communication. rather than being a simple release, art is simultaneously a giving-up and a taking-in. we give up our experiences in order for them to be taken in by someone else, creating a slow, deliberate dialogue--a telepathic communication between two souls. is art a Redeemer for the human race? definitely not. one can argue that clay pots and bone fragments have as much archeological significance--if not more--than literature. but what's in clay pots and bone fragments? they neither reveal to us aspects of the human condition nor their makers' subjective toils. they are voiceless.

get out your pencils, paint-brushes, notebooks, canvases..
and redeem the world :)