Art for Art's Sake

Posted on Wed 5th Jul, 2017 @ 3:56am by

1,251 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Unity Week
Location: Guggenheim XII, Deck 636
Timeline: MD 2, 1600

The Human was the kind of man to get lost in a crowd. His hair was a sort of a medium brown, going gray slowly. He was of an age to be considered young by the old, and old by the young. His waistline showed signs of good eating, but not to the point of embarrassment. His eyes were brown, with an epicanthic fold. The only truly remarkable thing about him was the colored staining of the tips of his right index finger and thumb.

He stood in front of a painting... a perfectly-replicated copy of an Earth classic. It was gigantic, three and a half meters tall, and almost eight meters wide, painted entirely in shades of gray. Animals and people seemed to overlap each other in the image, and all of them seemed to be in agony. "I am not entirely certain I have the proper sensory organs to properly appreciate this image," the man remarked to the person who had come to a halt next to him.

th'Elex turned his head to one side and the other, and even bending sideways a little, viewing the enormous painting from a good distance. "Our species are different, but I don't think I have the proper body parts to twist in such perverse ways. Can't think I'd want to live with it covering an entire wall of my home, either. Fascinating, but .... no, I don't think so. I'll be looking for something more comfortable and in proportion to my life."

The Human, Ken'ichi, nodded. "I have never understood non-representational art," he commented, turning to stroll toward the next work hung on the wall. "Siobhan, my late wife, preferred it. She liked this Picasso fellow quite a bit. Particularly his 'blue period,' which I believe this one is an example of." He indicated an image that seemed to be a guitar with a blue-skinned man folded uncomfortably around it, as if the two had undergone sudden, extreme acceleration. "No; non-representational isn't the right word. And 'impressionistic' is already claimed by a different school."

Tieran took a last glance at the monolithic painting, shook his head slightly, and moved on. "I don't know all the terms and classes. I just know what I like, and this isn't it. If you're gong to paint a man with a ... whatever it is, then it should look like man and that thing. This looks like a transporter accident." He sighed, then smiled a little. "Gotta love an artist who recognizes blue as the proper skin color, though."

"It's actually a decent representation of a guitar," Ken'ichi said, thoughtfully. "It's the man who's twisted. Which, given the time period, might be accurate." He shrugged, moved on. "Siobhan," he said, touching his wedding ring unconsciously, "said that a great deal of an artist's struggle was escaping the bounds of formal training and learning to see again as a child. Which always made me wonder why they bothered getting formal training in the first place."

th'Elex chuckled and his antennae waved slightly. "Good point. I didn't go to the Andorian Academy ... no talent for this sort of thing," he waved his hand at the pictures around the gallery. "No patience for doing it, either, but I do enjoy looking at what someone else imagines the world looks like. Or most someones, anyway." He glanced back at the Picasso and shuddered slightly.

"Now this," he said approvingly, "... this is proper art. It rather reminds me of Andorian tiles my mother has in her retiring room." He leaned closer to see the name of the artist, and then laughed. "Temaa Zh'valas, no wonder. She did paint my mother's tiles."

Ken'ichi considered the work. "The colors are quite astounding," he said at last. "I would have had no idea there were so many subtle colors in ice." He smiled. "I should bring my daughter here... if I can pry her out of a holopod."

"Ah, children," Tieran shook his head ruefully. "Now that's an area where I am definitely no expert. Other than selling them tech to do the gods only know what, I don't have much time for interaction with them. Does your daughter program her own adventures?"

They strolled on to the next exhibit, a rather disturbing and dark Klingon bit of metal statuary. Or that's how the Andorian interpreted it. To him, it was the stuff of nightmares. "You know, I've seen Klingon art that didn't look like death and destruction, but somehow this kind of thing always makes it into exhibitions and galleries."

"They have a great deal of collective ego invested in being the tough guys in the neighborhood," Ken'ichi remarked. After a moment, he went on, returning to the previous topic, "no, I don't think she programs them. I gather she's been exploring the Japanese side of our heritage. Sometimes it seems like every Human we meet out here traces their roots to North America."

The Andorian shrugged. "It's the same with all of us ... tracing our families back to where we started. I don't completely understand all the divisions of Earth - more than any other species I've run into, but still. We all need some sort of support for the idea that we are unique and, at the same time, the best representative of our species. No one ever wants to admit he's common or ordinary, not even a human."

Tiernan had no idea that he was being offensive, but it would only have mattered if he knew this man well enough to care about his opinion. There were possibilities, not yet realized.

Ken'ichi nodded. "It's worse for an adolescent, I think," he mused. "The struggle to find, and to define the noumenon, the self that is beyond the perception of others." He shrugged, walking on to a delicate spiral of glass which seemed to be singing quietly. "It is easier, as one gets older. One has experiences, understands the self better, understands that one is but a drop in a vast, ever-moving sea. And while some drops catch the light and sparkle, others are just... drops."

"Good analogy. That's the right word, yes?" But the Andorian continued without waiting for an answer. "For a world covered in water, it works. For a world that's ice ... maybe sparkle. But it doesn't fully translate, does it? I understand what you mean, though. And we are waxing way too philosophical for this art exhibit. So ... why do you think the glass is singing?" He leaned a little closer, trying to catch a melody, then straightened, puzzled. "Or is it?"

Ken'ichi leaned down to read the tag on the exhibit. "This says it's a masterpiece of Hamalki web-spinning. 'The aetherial music heard by some species in proximity to the web is created through crystalline interaction with light and wind.' Huh. I wonder if 'Hamalki' is a technique or a species?"

Tieran whipped out his pocket iPADD and said, "Shall we find out?" He said, "Hamalki web-spinning" and waited for the computer to come up with results. "I have it on silent mode, but -" a green light flashed and he pressed a button. Scrolling through the information quickly, he just said, "Huh," and handed the small device to the other man, suddenly realizing he didn't even known his name and they were having a great conversation about art ... and mostly thought along the same lines, strange for two so-different species. But then, maybe they weren't so different.

 

RSS Feed

Comments (1)