Is There A Fundamental Reason To Create Images and Prints?

Why do artists, in general, create images, paintings, sculptures... art at all?

What is the fundamental reason for someone to work for hours covered in paint or marble dust, or to go out in freezing weather at 5 o’clock in the morning to capture the sunrise?

To do something fun?

To express themselves?

To become famous?

To make art just for the sake of art?

To make money?

To make people think?

To entertain?

To make ART?

Each individual artist has their own motivation to make the art they do. It might be for one or several of the reasons I mentioned above, or it might be for some other reason I could not think of while writing this post (read further below regarding artists and thinking).

Looking at my own portfolio and reading once more through the articles I posted on this blog made me step back and contemplate why I make my images, write Haiku, PicTales, and Essays, and share this all with my readers on this website and blog.

Some of my personal drivers to keep going on are very basic and straightforward: because I like to take photos and I enjoy writing stories. It is just fun to do! In addition, however, I also want to trigger my reader's thoughts, show you something that might not be obvious to you when looking at one of my images for the first time. And of course, if you decide you like my images that much that you want to purchase a print: fabulous!

But let me dig a bit deeper and look at it from a broader point of view.

I asked myself whether there is not a more general and fundamental reason artists create their work and share it with the world. And when I talk about ‘art’ in this context I include art and artists (as I like to think I make, and am) and ART and ARTISTS (think big: Picasso, Vermeer, Warhol, Banksy, and all those others whose work we admire - or not - in galleries and museums).

Andy Warhol allegedly said: "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes".

Taking into consideration he said this in 1968, it can be considered to have been a highly prophetic remark with now Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and other social media tools available to everyone to make that come true; although in some cases, unfortunately, ‘infamous’ might be a better word to use.

This quote, however, made me wonder if the ultimate but probably not always consciously recognized objective every artist essentially is trying to achieve is maybe not (only) those 15 minutes of fame, but to actually be recognized and not forgotten. Continuing this line of thought a bit further led me to another famous quote.

The 17th-century French philosopher René Descartes wrote: "Cogito, ergo sum".

When Descartes used this phrase for the first time he actually wrote it in his mother language: French. Being it, however, fashionable for 17th-century philosophers and scientists to write their main works in Latin, the version above became most broadly known and quoted. What it means in plain, contemporary English is: "I think, therefore I am".

Extremely simplified, this philosophical proposition means that the mere fact that I think, and that I recognize that I think, proves that I exist.

While artists are not commonly renowned for their thinking (some even would argue that creating art should not involve any thinking at all and that it is only about feelings and emotions) it seems to me they actually take this thought to a new level, providing it with a new dimension.

I use the term ‘artist’ very liberally in this article. It includes professional artists (those who make their living with their art) and hobbyist artists (I really do not like the term ‘amateur'); it includes artists who make art and those who make ART; and while in this article I use examples of visual art and visual artists, everything I write here is, of course, also applicable to all artists and their art, irrespective of what kind of art they create.

By creating whatever the artists create they not only share their inner thoughts and feelings (!) with the world; they not only communicate their message to the world. Their art also communicates their existence to the world.

Consider the following example. Looking at Michelangelo’s David, I not only admire his work; I am also triggered to ask ‘who created this’, ‘who was this man’. By looking at the work of art I need to recognize that someone made it, that there was an artist. With other words: the work of art itself invites me – forces me –to recognize the existence of the artist, to acknowledge the existence of the maker.

And interestingly, this is not only true for art I admire. It is also true, and maybe even more so, for art I do not like, for art I do not understand. Not infrequently starting with the thought “What idiot made this”, reviewing the artwork usually leads to more research on it, leading to understanding and, if not liking, at least admiring of what has been accomplished and knowing (i.e. recognizing the existence of) the artist.

On a side note: consider the implications of this for the early medieval artists who created their art to illuminate churches and cathedrals. We never find names or signatures on this art because the general idea was that the artist should remain anonymous: the art was made to glorify God, and any reference to the artist might make the viewer focus on the creator of the art and reduce the focus on the Creator of the world. However, for the contemporary viewer the question is still relevant: who made this? Thus, even without any means to know who these artists were, we still are recognizing their existence. But I digress…

Going back to my main line of thought: Michelangelo and his David, of course, are a rather ‘big’ example (no pun intended). But is what I stated above not true for all works of art? Does not every painting, statue, graffiti, installation, or… photographic image and print… trigger these questions: what is it, how was it made, why was it made. WHO made it?

And does that not possibly lead to the most fundamental reason for artists to create their work: for other people to look at it, and ask these questions? For other people to look at it, and wonder who made it? And not only now, not only for 15 minutes of fame but now and in the future? And, as I stipulated above, what else is looking at a work of art and asking the question ‘who made this piece of art’ than recognizing the existence of the artist?

What else then is creating a work of art than shouting to the world: I am here, this is what I made, this I what I think, this is what I want you to look at, this is my message to the world, you can not ignore my existence?

Does not every artist basically say:

I CREATE, THEREFORE I AM