Have you ever noticed that there is something deeply wrong about the arts world? Our cities are choked with drab, boxy buildings, parking lots, and billboards. Our most popular music is vacuous and coarse. The walls of our hotels and airports are covered with art chosen for its sheer banality. Our most popular films utterly lack in satisfying plot lines. What’s going on here?
The truth is we’ve forgotten what the arts are really about. And in that forgetting, we no longer notice that something’s missing from the art we create and consume. After all, if you’ve never heard a live orchestra, and all you’ve known is the tinny sound of department store music, would you even know what you were missing? The tragedy is that so many of us are so used to cheap substitutes like these that for the most part we just go along with it. But there’s something inside every single one of us that knows that something’s wrong, that art is supposed to be better than this.
This is because we are in fact hardwired for transcendent art. This is why we keep seeking genuine artistic experiences despite their rarity in our society. And this is why so many of us feel so disappointed with the art that’s on display. Our souls long for Chartres Cathedral, but what we get is a Walmart Superstore.
Learn more, as well as what you as an individual musician or artist can do about it, in this video.
Be among the first to know about my upcoming book “Soulforce Arts: The Vital Role of Musicians & Other Artists in a World That’s Lost Its Mind” by signing up for my mailing list at JosephArnold.com and soon at SoulforceArts.com.
Joseph Arnold Violinist, Alexander Technique Teacher, Director of the Soulforce Arts Institute
