PHILOSOPHY & INFLUENCE

Art resists incorporation into the scientific paradigm of the world.

The world as described by science is rigid and can be mapped discretely onto the physical world. It can describe how light moves through a projector, or how blood rushes through brains. But those material categories fail to describe the world which is captured in a Film. We can describe every material aspect of a film without ever touching on the story. Such a picture of the world is incomplete. For example, in Titanic the characters Jack and Rose cannot be reduced to pixels or celluloid. Their relationship cannot be identically reduced to the relationship between the actors. We can speak meaningfully about them on their own terms.

I defend the notion that science can describe the world of objects, but not the world of Art and ideas. This was a crucial point stressed by the Romantics, who drew on Immanuel Kant’s philosophy. The world of Art is directed towards that which science necessarily eludes—the transcendent.

Science cannot tell us what it means for a work of Art to be good. There is a stark difference between what the senses can tell us, and the truths which they can neither confirm nor deny. 

It cannot tell us how we ought to see or orient towards a work of Art. It cannot explain away and reduce, nor even tolerate the difference between the world represented on screen from the physical world we see in front of us.

If we take Film as it meaningfully appears to us, and the worlds they present on their own terms, we are directly encountering something which frustrates our ability to phenomenologically situate. We cannot fit Film neatly into our categories of reality that make perfect sense and cohere with what we see in front of us. It goes beyond it necessarily. We cannot bridge the gap between the worlds depicted on screen with the worlds we see in front of us, whether they are fictional or otherwise representational.

We cannot intellectually understand Film entirely and properly situate it ontologically, but we can sense the massive role it plays in our lives, and the sense of transcendence going to the movies can bring. Such a belief presupposes a faith in metaphor. We use metaphors because they go beyond what we can state merely as a matter of fact.

We gesture at the sun hidden by our epistemic horizons, a light which casts its shadows in our caves and within our theaters. Art stands over-against the world as the paradoxical quilting point between what is seen and temporary and that which is unseen and eternal. A mysterious fold between realities.

Creating Art is a profoundly religious act. When we contemplate films, or paintings, or any captivating work of art, we encounter more questions and deeper mysteries the longer we sit with them. And yet with them we also discover more answers and profound insights. We find ourselves aligned with a better way to live and to act in the world around us as a response to good Art. One can dismiss Art as representational, fictitious, or merely “lies breathed through silver”, but one cannot authentically deny that Art brings us closer to truth — clearing away and abstracting from the muck which the world brings, allowing us to see the world in a new and proper light. Whether we one recognizes this or not is a different question.

My views of Art are directly influenced by a variety of authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Immanuel Kant, Plato, and others. Stylistically, I continually remain inspired by Baroque and Romantic paintings, which I sometimes quote in my own images directly or in theme. My fine art work combines the striking vibrant colors and contemplative landscapes of the Romantics with the dark subtleties and religious imagery emphasized in the tenebrism practiced by Caravaggio. Film, too, is close to my heart. I am also incredibly fond of a variety of filmmakers. The brilliance, tenacity, and depth of story that Christopher Nolan and Martin Scorsese bring to their respective works such as Inception (2010) and Silence (2016) inspire me daily to create.

Film and photography are like painting with light, and what they represent should be enlightening.

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“A camera is an opening in a box: that is the best emblem of the fact that a camera holding an object is holding the rest of the world away. The camera has been praised for extending the senses; it may, as the world goes, deserve more praise for confining them, leaving room for thought.”

- Stanley Cavell, The World Viewed