Comment from JV:
This question goes to the heart of not only art but communication and the psychological development of each individual. In the world of art parameters have to be set. Too much chaos and the Child (the observer) is frightened away and will not bond or try to understand the language that is set before them. But if there seems to be a clear framework and against that an experiment is set in place where chance is allowed then the observer has a way in.
In two dimensional art there are several ways of setting these parameters.
The spectrum or number of colours used, the understood conventions of composition, the variety of materials used can be the framework.
The world of ancient Egyptian art had very definite parameters set and maintained by the priesthood and any contravention spelt trouble as Akenaten subsequently found when those parameters were broken. Other civilisations also had stylistic languages that can be readily seen with the benefit of hindsight. Styles will evolve usually slowly but in the world of art that occurred rapidly at the beginning of the 20th Century.
Many have blamed Freud for this but the demise of the Church as a political force, the growth of mass produced goods and above all the belief that the common man had a right to sort (or not sort) his own life saw an explosion in the numbers of languages that were then used by artists. Art had become democratic. It was no longer a highly skilled apprenticeship relying on the patronage of the church or state. Backyards, garrets, scruffy studios became the focus of attention and pilgrimage as artists set about the business of how to communicate. Wealthy patrons crossed the Atlantic or came out of Russia and somehow understood or wanted to understand these revolutionary ways of communicating. The seer could be a painter, a dance choreographer, an architect, a designer or a composer. Riots broke out in Paris after the Rite of Spring was first performed. The Fuaves (or Wild Beasts) were breaking through rules of the use of colour. Schoenberg was breaking the rules of the octave.
The resulting hammer blow that shattered the predictable world that had been run by church and state was to be taken over by a new kid on the block, the wealthy entrepreneur who could travel. Mass communication allowed the dissemination of images and art galleries have become the new temples. Ordinary people try and work out how other ordinary people tick.
This may not be a conscious process. Images may haunt or remind at a subliminal level. The beast in each one of us has been given licence to express. But to do that we have to come from a psychologically secure base; the boringly predictable parental framework and only then can we find the energy to rebel. Too much chaos and insecurity and the Child will never feel free to explore and experiment.
That is the drama that is re-enacted every time there is an artistic hammer hitting the crystalline rock of predictability. It happens with each individual and it happens to whole populations. That is the drama that is tapped into when we stand in front of Jackson Pollock and realise there is no Golden Section and I could be floating in space. The genie is out of the bottle and can not be put back.
