Objective and Subjective Art
"There is art and art. You have doubtless noticed that during our
lectures and talks I have often been asked various questions by
those present relating to art but I have always avoided talks on
this subject. This was because I consider all ordinary talks about
art as absolutely meaningless. People speak of one thing while they
imply something quite different and they have no idea whatever what
they are implying. At the same time it is quite useless to try to
explain the real relationship of things to a man who does not know
the A B C about himself, that is to say, about man. We have talked
together now for some time and by now you ought to know this A B C,
so that I can perhaps talk to you now even about art.
"You must first of all remember that there are two kinds of art, one
quite different from the other - objective art and subjective art.
All that
you know, all that you call art, is subjective art, that is,
something that I do not call art at all because it is only objective
art that I call art.
"To define what I call objective art is difficult first of all
because you ascribe to subjective art the characteristics of
objective art, and secondly because when you happen upon objective
works of art you take them as being on the same level as subjective
works of art.
"I will try to make my idea clear. You say - an artist creates. I
say this only in connection with objective art. In relation to
subjective art I say that with him ′it is created.′ You do not
differentiate between these, but this is where the whole difference
lies. Further you ascribe to subjective art an invariable action,
that is, you expect works of subjective art to have the same
reaction on everybody. You think, for instance, that a funeral march
should provoke in everyone sad and solemn thoughts and that any
dance music, a komarinsky for instance, will provoke happy thoughts.
But in actual fact this is not so at all. Everything depends upon
association. If on a day that a great misfortune happens to me I
hear some lively tune for the first time this tune will evoke in me
sad and oppressive thoughts for my whole life afterwards. And if on
a day when I am particularly happy I hear a sad tune, this tune will
always evoke happy thoughts. And so with everything else.
"The difference between objective art and subjective art is that in
objective art the artist really does ′create,′ that is, he makes
what he intended, he puts into his work whatever ideas and feelings
he wants to put into it. And the action of this work upon men is
absolutely definite; they will, of course each according to his own
level, receive the same ideas and the same feelings that the artist
wanted to transmit to them. There can be nothing accidental either
in the creation or in the impressions of objective art.
"In subjective art everything is accidental. The artist, as I have
already said, does not create; with him ′it creates itself.′ This
means that he is in the power of ideas, thoughts, and moods which he
himself does not understand and over which he has no control
whatever. They rule him and they express themselves in one form or
another. And when they have accidentally taken this or that form,
this form just as accidentally produces on man this or that action
according to his mood, tastes, habits, the nature of the hypnosis
under which he lives, and so on. There is nothing invariable;
nothing is definite here. In objective art there is nothing
indefinite."