Connection to Canaday’s “The Search for Magic: Cave Art and Contemporary Art”
John Canaday’s “The Search for Magic: Cave Art and Contemporary Art” was a very insightful piece of writing. This piece can be appreciated more, if the reader has knowledge of Freud’s theory of ego as it dives into someone’s identity through magic and symbols. Freud’s ego could be described as something we create, and something that we imagine. This can relate to the concept of magic and art because we personify not only our identity, but we literally create a extension of ourselves through artwork.
Canaday starts his writing with the discovery of a sliver of bone and how prehistorically, these artists were making creations for a specific purpose as either part of a ritual or function. They created symbols that held a magical or religious purpose. He continues to discuss the evolution of an artist to modern times, where many of the magical elements have been taken away by science; for example, the creation of photography and other mechanical or automated processes. He then relates how modern artist create their own magic and symbols using their own “private vocabulary” where he creates new symbologies. The magic of art, is the emotional and intellectual responses of the viewer.
Looking at artwork through this lens, specifically the Cave Paints of Lascaux, you can really appreciate the value of this piece in the context of the spirituality. You can view these marks as a sharing of lives and perspective thus communicating with your own human roots. This is even more valuable, because now people have a stigma that society and culture is a backdrop to nature; whereas in the perception of the cave man, man and nature are more implicit to the sublime. I connect this to the author’s discussion of Miro’ where he states that “Miro has turned to ceramics, as if yearning to abandon the canvas for a return of the stone wall.” I feel that Miro tapped into this idea of the clearness of the sublime in this way, which gives me a new perspective of Miro’s spirituality and mind.
I really connected with Canady’s statement “Thirty thousand years ago we used to give souls, friendly or evil, to other things in the world- to trees, to water, to the wind, to rocks. In our hearts we continued to hold on to the idea after we knew better”. Artists still elevate objects and thoughts into our art and therefore into our souls. Artists must have a sense of emotional intelligence and I believe any good artist mystifies the subject while translating it into an image.
I also identified with his thoughts, “The more he intellectualizes, the more he discovers that eventually he bumps into the old function of artist as a kind of necromancer. Hence the return on the part of more artists every day, to faith in the oldest idea of all, the idea of art as the creation of magical symbols through which man relates himself to his environment”. I feel magic isn’t necessarily an illusion or misdirection – but rather an idea. Artist creates magic in themselves in the inner workings of bringing an object to life; almost conjuring up these symbols and attributes of culture, thoughts and feelings. You could even go as far as connecting it biologically by connecting mind to body. This becomes even more beautiful when you have marriage between magic and science. I feel that is where art truly lives.