What is Art?

This is an excerpt from a longer post in this blog entitled Sondheim & Novalis: Chasing Flowers, Finishing Hats, and the Irrepressible Force of Art.

I have pulled out this section to make it more accessible. For citations, see the original post.

Art is Yearning

Novalis (the Romantic) is defined by his yearning. In “Hymns to the Night” he yearns to escape the limitations of the physical world. In “To the Poets” he urges poets to write works that connect with the divine. He devoured philosophy (particularly Kant and Fichte), but also explored mysticism and the occult. Nothing was off limits in his quest to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of reality and the human soul.

Sondheim (the Rationalist) also yearns. Where Novalis chased his blue flower, Sondheim has his hat. Even now, in his 90s, he continues to “finish his hat.” Every day he works at it. It’s in his blood. He can’t help it.

And his characters yearn as well. They long for emotional connection. In “Merrily We Roll Along,” they yearn to learn "how to let go," lower their guard, "relax, let go, let fly…" In “Sunday in the Park with George,” George yearns for recognition for his art, but also a connection with others. In “Into the Woods” there is all manner of yearning. The list goes on.

This yearning is the foundation for creativity. It’s what drives the artist forward. And although the ingredients that go into it are a mysterious and varied, there are certain attributes shared by Sondheim and Novalis that stand out. One such attribute is enthusiasm.

Art is enthusiasm.

To yearn requires energy, something usually associated with the young. 

Novalis believed that children represent a “Golden Age” The implication is that the young, because they are not yet completely situated in society, have a special knowledge not only of the future, but of our most primitive origins.

Surely it is no accident that the words “childlike” and “childish“ appear on the first few pages of his work, Christianity or Europe, linked to such words as “trust,” “dream,” and “innocence.” On the path to true humanity, one must rid oneself of the trappings of everyday reality, and this can be most easily accomplished by children—or the “childlike,” e.g., the artist—who have not yet been entwined in a web of pragmatic considerations.

The antithesis of this, the enemy, is the philistine, who also makes an appearance in this work. Novalis despises this type – “The philistine who never transcends everyday life, has little use for poetry, and embraces religion as little more than an “opiate.”

Sondheim also dislikes this type, and echoes many of these same sentiments. Part 2 of Sunday is an indictment of the art world and the influence of philistines.

He also commented to Frank Rich about the sorry state of contemporary theater:

"What's happened to the theater," he says, "is one thing that does depress me a lot because it is such a large part of my life. You'd go and see other shows that would stimulate you, that would make you want to write. Now it makes you not want to write because you think the audience isn't there anymore. The audience that is there is not an audience who would either like or respond to the kind of stuff I write except with, if anything, kind of detached bemusement instead of getting involved."

And while Sondheim may sound like an old elitist here, he rejects the label.

As Frank Rich explains:

The only time he cut me off was when I began a question with the phrase, "When you grew up. . . ." "I never grew up," he interjected, with a finality that foreclosed any follow-up. This may explain how Sondheim has remained an artist and why, for all his sophistication, he can seem guileless, even naive.”

Rich continues:

It’s a mixture of this objectivity, enthusiasm, and adventurousness, I think, that keeps Steve fresh. Steve may be a lifelong creature of Manhattan, yet he’s game for anything and anybody…

There is a fierce critical intelligence at work here, but beneath the analytic zeal, beneath the love of language, there is also a boyish enthusiasm and directness -- a perpetual student's curiosity about the world, coupled with a professional craftsman's erudition.

Curiosity. Enthusiasm. Naiveté.  It’s a short step from there to another attribute that both Sondheim and Novalis share—optimisim.

Art is optimism.

Yearning doesn’t require optimism, but it helps.

The unshakeable outlook of both artists is evident in the way they deal with death—not as a reason for despair, but as a way to celebrate life. Both in their lives and their art, their optimism shines through.

The death of Sophie Kuhn (and the death of his younger brother, Erasmus, shortly thereafter) affected Novalis deeply. For a time he embraced a kind of Christian mysticism, and even professed to be longing for his own death in order to be reunited with her. But her death did not cause him to lose his optimism. On the contrary, it was the major catalyst that changed his life and led him to focus all his artistic energy on his grand project of fusing life and art. His response to heartbreak was to live life to its fullest.

Even on his deathbed he was optimistic.

A few days before his death, he said to his brother Carl: “When I am well again, then you will finally learn what poetry is. In my head I have magnificent poems and songs.” These died with him.

Sondheim also deals with death, not as a downer, but as a motivation to live life to the fullest.

Sondheim has created so many colorful and haunting images of death in his musicals, using the theme, in a way, as a celebration of life or, rather, as the antithesis of obscurity. Death has strength. Death comes is myriad forms. Death is a motivator. The specter of death either kills us, or more likely, sustains us through our need for survival. It is the grandest of juxtapositions: life and death. The two wrestle and we all know who eventually wins, but Sondheim finds a way to make it an interesting battle to the very end.  

And although there is a sadness in some of Sondheim’s characters, it is presented in the context of mystery, another attribute closely associated with art.

Art is mysterious.

Sondheim and Novalis both embrace mystery.

Novalis’ entire project centers on mystery—the mysterious language of nature, and the ineffable blue flower. And like Sondheim, he often ventures into the mysterious woods, a favorite metaphor of the Romantics.

Sondheim is a specialist in mystery. Not only are mysteries his passion, he uses mystery as a theme in many of his works.

But as Rich puts it, a better word to describe Sondheim’s work is “ineffable.”

Yearning/sadness … sorry/grateful—that’s Steve, all right. And “ineffable”? The dictionary says it means “incapable of being expressed in words,” and, for me, it will do for Steve too. The ineffable quality in Sondheim’s work is where love enters his equation—his love for his characters, our reciprocal love for him. As Oscar Hammerstein wrote in “What’s the Use of Wond’rin’,” if you love someone, “all the rest is talk.”

Art is love.

Love defines art. It is the fuel that drives the motor. Without love (passion) there is no art. There is no yearning.

Love, more than anything defines Novalis. His love for Sophie set him off on the route of self-discovery…  

Despite his reputation as a rational thinker, love and passion is central to Sondheim’s art and life. He talks about love as “the life force in a deadened world,” and how

 “Passion' is about how the force of somebody's feelings for you can crack you open,"

And as for the passion in his method, this is what Ben Brantley had to say:

“… critics have often characterized his body of work as cerebral and cold— "all mind, no heart," as a character put it in "Sunday" —when in fact its virtuosic brilliance cloaks both extraordinary passion and a dazzling array of emotional moods. Indeed, if Mr. Sondheim resembles any composer, it is probably George Gershwin—not only in his ability to combine American and European influences, classical and popular idioms, but also in simple terms of his music's ambition and emotional pull.”

But passion has a downside.

It makes you vulnerable. Like George at the window in Sunday, you can find yourself observing life rather than participating in it. The whole notion of being in the moment is lost.

Sondheim addresses this directly and says he is only truly in the moment is when he’s in character, creating his art.

This leads to an interesting take on Sondheim’s identity. Insofar as his work consumes him, it would also define him. Ergo, Sondheim the man is Sondheim the artist. So when he says his characters are not autobiographical, is he simply playing a role—the role of the artist?

Is Sondheim the ultimate chameleon? Is there a “real” Sondheim or is he simply a stew of all his characters? There is no answer, of course. The notion of a “fake” Sondheim made up of his characters makes no more sense than the notion of a “real” Sondheim. He wears many hats. Like everyone else, he is just living his life, trying to get “home.”

Or as a psychologist might say, he is looking for psychological harmony.

Art is Therapy

Put simply, art saved Sondheim.

Or more accurately, Oscar Hammerstein saved Sondheim.

And he did this by setting him on the path to becoming an artist. According to Sondheim, not only did Hammerstein teach him the craft of songwriting, he taught him “the redemptive—and avenging—principles of art.”

By providing him with the tools to bring “order to chaos” he provided a positive outlet for all of his hurt and rage, and set the foundation for his life’s work. From then on, “making order out of chaos” became Sondheim’s mantra, both for his art and his life. And over his decades as an artist, his appreciation for the therapeutic value of art has grown.

As he puts it:

"The analyst I went to had a particular interest in the relationship between creativity and neurosis, and I spent a lot of time talking to him about how art tries to make order out of chaos, not just the chaos of the world, but the chaos of your own feelings and your own discombobulations.

"Our lives aren't scripted," he continues. "They're chaotic. That's why people enjoy art, not just narrative, but paintings and music, too. It's about giving order to what everybody knows does not have order at all."

Or as George says in "Sunday in the Park": "The challenge: Bring order to the whole./ Through design./ Composition./ Tension./ Balance./ Light./ And harmony."

When Sondheim turned 63, he commented that he was happier personally than he had ever been. "It was after a struggle," he said, "and after a lot of pain—just the way Giorgio has to struggle a long time." Twenty-five years of analysis, he believes, helped lay the groundwork for the richness he now feels in his life: "It's not entirely luck," he says. "I think you have to be ready for things."

Hammerstein’s mentorship, followed by the decades of hard work—trying to bring order to chaos—laid the groundwork and ultimately provided Sondheim with the psychological harmony he was yearning for.

Novalis and art as therapy

As for Novalis, his entire approach was one big exercise in trying to get home—finding psychological fulfillment.

But unlike Sondheim, what spurred Novalis to action was not the chaos of his upbringing, but rather the burden of growing up in a world of oppressive rules and restrictions. Where Sondheim sought the safety of a protected harbor, Novalis sought the excitement and adventure of the open sea. Where Sondheim restricted himself to the narrow world of musical theater, Novalis spread his wings to include myriad forms of artistic expression. Where Sondheim exercised the discipline of a pointillist painter, Novalis painted with broad strokes. Where Sondheim led with his head, Novalis led with his heart.

And yet both made the choice to become artists—both had the guts to make that decision —the single most important element in art.

Art is a choice

At the end of the day, art is a choice.

As Niguchi puts it:

In creating art, “that impossible process of controlling the uncontrollable, a number of questions about the work arise: where lies the real art here? Is it the end result: … The infinite possibilities… allowed by the technique? Or the simple intention of seeking control over chaos?”

It’s the latter. It’s the only thing it can be. Art in the sense of “really” being anything is exactly that—it’s ultimately the simple act of making a choice.

Sondheim has made this point repeatedly over the years.

For example, in “Move on” in Sunday in the Park with George:

“I chose and my world was shaken

So What?

The Choice may have been mistaken.

The Choosing was not”

It’s the choosing that counts, not what’s chosen. As Kohn puts it, The act of choosing “represented for him a way of transcending the purely “aesthetic” life—that is, one devoted to a succession of pleasurable experiences.”

Another example:

The Baker’s wife, in Into the Woods, when she sings:

“Oh, if life were made of moments Even now and then a bad one — !”

But then immediately she understands the consequences:

“But if life were only moments, Then you’d never know you had one.”

She understands that there is nothing without context and perspective (order). This is Sondheim’s message.

Even Cinderella on the steps of the palace—who chooses not to choose—has chosen. Everything in life is a series of choices. And that’s all ultimately that art is or can be. A choice.

For Sondheim and Novalis, it was their choice to become artists. The messy circumstances of their lives— their upbringing, their training, their talent, their passion, and most importantly their yearning to pursue the blue flower (and finish the hat), led them down their respective paths to art.

Art is art

Technically, art is simply art. It’s just a label—a placeholder for an idea. It is what we say it is. Society has determined that certain forms and certain works fall under the definition of art. But that is malleable and evolving. Look at what Sondheim did with musicals. He turned a medium for entertainment into one for art. Or what Novalis did by linking art and nature. He created a new way of looking at the world.

At the end of the day that’s all we can say. There is nothing “deeper” about art. There is no one “language of nature” as Novalis would have it. And there is no final solution to the puzzle as Sondheim might put it. Art does not somehow exist on a deeper level than other things—it is what we say it is. It is quite simply, as Niguchi puts it, an “intent,” a choice to pursue art. It can be no other way.

But behind this intent there is in fact one timeless and unwavering principle that underlies all art (and everything for that matter)—the mysterious and unrelenting yearning to get home. And ultimately it doesn’t matter how you attempt to get there—through Novalis’ crooked road of chaos or Sondheim’s linear road of order—so long as you choose.

Of course the word “home” just prompts the inevitable question: What do you mean by “home?” But that’s the point, isn’t it? There is no end, and there never will be. There is just yearning.