The Epochal nature of Art: Oil painting in visual art in the Age of consumption
Liu Xie’s “Wen Xin Diao Long · Timing” has said: “the time of the movement, the quality of the generation change”, “old knowledge of the text change dyed with the world, xing waste is on the timing”. Art cannot be separated from society. Art is epochal but transcends The Times, while the life of artists cannot surpass The Times and society. Every artist cannot transcend his time. More can’t get rid of the constraints of The Times. Individual artistic practice is bound to be influenced by its times. This puts forward our artists in this changing society, what kind of mentality and way, in order to create works with the characteristics of The Times, stamped with the brand of The Times, showing different characteristics of The Times, show different spirit of The Times.
Art is not a craft, art is a culture, is an idea. Technology exists for a raison d ‘etre to help artists finish their work. When artists create art, they want to tell the audience a kind of consciousness, a kind of survival experience, a kind of cultural thinking and a kind of life state. What we try to understand about a work is the “meaning” it wants to convey to us. This paper mainly focuses on “cultural and artistic consumption” and “artistic individuality and epochal nature”.
Key words: consumption era, culture, consumption, age, popularity
Quote:
The artist is a social person, but also a cultural person, from his body can reflect the spirit and values of the contemporary people, the beauty and ugliness of his works not only reflects his own views, but also reflects the aesthetic orientation of the whole era. An artist should, on the basis of his own personality, take his experience of The Times as the condition, take artistic visual language as the medium, take emotion and inspiration as the catalyst, and take the eternal existence value of art as the target, walk on the avenue of artistic development and complete his contribution to art.
First, the public’s demand for cultural consumption
The state of human physical existence, social existence and spiritual existence is always in an alternate cycle between scarcity and enrichment. When these three states of human beings are in sensory deprivation, they constitute human needs, which are essential elements and motivation to satisfy human physiological, social and spiritual existence.
The hierarchy of human needs is established on the basis of rising satisfaction, which is a gradual process from low level to high level. The law of progressive or rising of the development of consumer demand is a natural historical process of the development of economic and social productive forces. When people’s basic needs are satisfied, they must pursue high-level spiritual needs such as physical and mental health, spiritual enrichment and self-perfection. Rapidly increase as a result, the productivity level, highly developed economy, products rich in modern economic society, people’s consumption is already beyond the basic survival needs of the stages of hierarchy, and greater access to meet the spiritual consumption, enjoyment and development of high-level functions, cultural consumption is such a kind of consumption patterns.
According to their own subjective will, people choose cultural products and services to meet their spiritual needs, so that subjects feel happy and satisfied; The objects that meet the needs of the subject are mainly spiritual and cultural products or spiritual and cultural activities, such as beautiful scenery and moving artwork.
The rapid development of modern science and technology makes the whole human society gradually enter the consumption era. The growth of cultural consumption demand is always subject to the development of social productivity level, so the level of cultural consumption can more directly and more prominently reflect the degree of modern material civilization and spiritual civilization. The more capital expands, the higher the consumption of culture. The real symbol of great wealth is the consumption of arts and culture, not of cars and houses. Compared with material consumption, the space of cultural consumption is definitely the attribution of more capital. When the rich invest 30 per cent of their wealth in art, the first to become rich may creep closer to civilization, otherwise they will never be noble.
As the visual art of cultural consumption, the humanistic care shown in realizing social value through consumption is more about affinity and entertainment with the audience.
The moment an artist puts down his brush and completes his creation, his work no longer belongs to him. Artistic creation has come to an end, whether it can cause effect depends on the induction and resonance produced by his audience. Only when the work and the audience can finally form a common sublimation on the aesthetic level, can the social attribute of this work of art be recognized, that is to say, this work of art has the popularity.
A piece of work, the larger the ideological capacity, the more innovative the art form, the more skilled the artistic expression, the richer or simpler the visual effect, no matter what cultural level of people are likely to reside next to your work, that can show that your work has established a successful communication with the public.
People’s value concept, artistic accomplishment, aesthetic interest pursuit, etc., it is the different reactions naturally produced by people of different ages and different education when they understand various concepts, consciousness, ideological trend, artistic language forms and artistic skills related to art in the East and the West. The contemporaneous nature of artistic creation is precisely reflected in the understanding and pursuit of contemporary people’s spirit and mass spirit.
Of course, it is not always good works that the public likes. Here, it is mentioned that the aesthetic taste and art appreciation of the public need to be constantly guided and improved, which is a long-term process. There needs to be a process in which the public’s education level is generally improved, their life is generally rich, their independent consciousness of cultural needs and diverse choices is generally improved, and their cultural consumption concept and purchasing ability are improved. Any social form, any social system of art needs guidance, without good guidance, there will be no good acceptance. The development of art and the public aesthetic is a synchronous development, interactive relationship. In this era, artists should take the initiative to build a bridge of communication between their works and the public, and form a corresponding relationship between creation and aesthetic interaction, so as to better guide the public and serve the public.
Second, art should be contemporary
All artists are producers of consumer goods. This requires artists to stand on the height of cultural development and artistic innovation and face creation with a healthy attitude. In 21st century China, great changes have taken place in the values of society, cultural communication and collision between east and west, the conflicts of values, cultural conflicts, etc., make people’s opinions about the function and value of art to have great changes have taken place, should have the educational functions of art in addition to its itself, and its aesthetic consumption and entertainment function, people in understanding art at the same time, It has also changed art, as well as artists’ world outlook and creative outlook.
Visual art in the age of consumption has its own characteristics and discourse. Based on life and emotion, it has its own personality, style, form and beauty. It can dissolve major, serious and even profound social, life and cultural problems into humorous jokes and witty entertainment from the perspective of comic and comic games. The problems of society, life and culture are heavy, but the art of the consumption age can make it as easy and pleasant as crosstalk and sketch.
Consumer society at the same time support the aesthetics and aesthetic, the commercialization of the products which on the one hand, created an unprecedented era of art and aesthetic of democracy, on the other hand also make one of the most important aesthetic object, art, and economic hegemony by bullying and lost the elite and self-discipline, the pursuit of symbolic value, the use of marketing technology, focus on economic return, Pop art has become the mainstream of the art form of The Times, forming a “new aesthetic principle” that pays attention to both artistry and consumption.
Living in such an era of sudden openness and change, the true meaning of art is hard to prove in different experiences. In the case of relatively backward economic and cultural development, it is obvious that the reliance on and reference to the strong foreign culture is very urgent and explicit. All “innovation” is the “confidence” established in being close to and similar to others. Each era has its own characteristics and weathervanes. The core of our era is to emancipate our minds and keep pace with The Times, and innovation is the essential feature of our era. Seeking innovation and change is a natural need of social and cultural progress, but it has become less natural at the moment, instead evolving into a kind of impatient, awkward and insincere joke. Similar schemata, hysteria and whining have become a new routine, which only regards art as fun and consumption, destroying the real creativity and spirituality of art.
Each visual style should profoundly express philosophical concepts, emotional experience and spiritual appeal. The schema in the painting should be able to convey thoughts, feelings and concepts succinctly, and let you forget the form itself, and then reveal the idea and spiritual direction behind. Painting can not only hear and see with the ear, but also understand and feel the highest level of human thoughts and feelings beyond the surface of nature. Art is not a commodity, painting is to be enjoyed. With the development of social economy, human culture is also moving forward, real art is always advancing with The Times of social development, only in this way can art continue to innovate.
No great artist is immune from vulgarity. Every artist cannot transcend his time. More can’t get rid of the constraints of The Times. Individual artistic practice is bound to be influenced by its times.
If artists only have ideas without culture, they will seek for novelty and excitement. Or even have no concept, hype themselves, make news. It is impossible to make the work with The Times, we have to create the main body into a comprehensive literacy “people of The Times”.
An artist should not only be a “technical person”, but also a cultural person with rich artistic accomplishment, corresponding concept and rich social experience. Find their own emotional and spiritual belonging, face life, and constantly improve the character realm and accomplishment. A good work with good form, good expression, rich content, integration of contemporary artistic values and aesthetic taste, reflecting the positive spirit is a good work, a work of The Times.
Conclusion:
Real art should be independent of fashion consumerism, protect people’s last pure spiritual home, maintain art’s evaluation and criticism of social reality, and place people’s deeper humanistic ideals in their spirit. Although in this social background of fashion consumption, this idea seems utopian and idealistic, it can still be realized by the artist’s personality, because art is spiritual, and thus can be lonely and independent. She can travel in the secular and mediocrity of the tide, in the calm to achieve their own survival value, to find the due noble and sacred!
