" . . . we are still working for this affirmation from the white man. On the surface, we seem to be competing with him."
INDIO PLAYS THE VIOLIN
I am attracted more and more toward the ethical dimensions of art. The hardest lesson I could ever teach a student is the lesson of purpose.
It is easy for the Filipino student to get entangled in traps as he or she unravels this concept. It is impossible for me to infect a younger person with my own purpose in life. This is simply not correct. However, it is equally impossible for me not to deal with the problem. As a teacher, I must answer in the clearest way possible the question: "What is good art?"
In the old days, it was easy for my teachers to deal with this question. Art was something we were learning, a puzzle which must have to be solved. Good art was the unraveling of the secrets of Titian or discovering the genius of Rembrandt. Art was learning the secrets of Abellana. Art was a pure academic enterprise. What was the artist's purpose? To paint like Picasso or Van Gogh or some other model of excellence and success.
I have since grown away from this purpose. What finally convinced me was a picture in a movie, once. This was a film set in a Central American jungle. Jesuits are converting the natives. The scene which stuck in my mind is of a young native child, frail in a white frock. He is playing the violin to the priests' superiors. He is playing to prove to the white man that the native could be civilized. And the white men are nodding their heads at this sight. They are saying to themselves, perhaps: "Well, if these Indians can play the violin this way, then they must be more than monkeys, they must have souls." And it dawned on me that much of the art we had ever done had been to show white people how civilized we were. I felt like an Indian playing the violin.
"Indio Playing the Violin" is an icon worth thinking about. We ask ourselves: Why was Jose Rizal a good hero? We answer: He spoke five or more languages, he wrote Spanish better than the Spaniards, etc. Why was Juan Luna a good painter? He won the most prestigious award for art in Spain at the time he was there. He beat the Spaniards at it. In a way, "Indio Playing the Violin" is an icon of our need for validity, our thirst for acceptance into the world of the white man, some desolate affirmation of our humanity. Affirmation, from whom?
I suspect, we are still working for this affirmation from the white man. On the surface, we seem to be competing with him. In reality we fall into a trap. We ask ourselves: what are our criteria for good art. We answer: balance, color harmony, the golden mean, etc. But these are criteria which white people invented. Instead of mastering these criteria, wouldn't we better invent our own?
Caught as we are in the academic and western valuation of art, mastery of form becomes the inevitable goal. But it is also a dead end. It is like saying: My purpose in life is to play Bach better than Bach himself. In the existentialist sense, it may seem logical. But what good does art do anyone if its purpose is simply to outdo the dead?
The old purpose of art is quite obviously dead. What is the point competing with Van Gogh or Gaugauin or someone else? Even so, many contemporary artists still seem to do this same thing. At the level of the personal, the underlying purpose is to show others how good we are or to prove that within a particular territory, we are the best. We are this year's Abellana or we are the Amorsolo of Labangon. This is fine attitude for a boxer, but it does not answer the question: Why should we do art?
Art is one of the means by which we define our world. That may sound a bit heavy but it is extremely valid and true. And it is important for Filipinos to realize this fact, because many of us do not understand that we have so far allowed other people to define our world for us. And we seem to be missing the ability to rebel. We have lost our capacity to define our world by ourselves. We say, this is what the world is. This is beautiful. This is what is correct. But when we say this is this and that is that, are we saying what is really true, or are we quoting some white man's book? These are things worth thinking about.
I was talking once with a fisherman. He was weaving stalks of bamboo to make a fish trap. I asked him how many feet the stalks were. Instead of answering, he looked at me as if I had come from another planet. It would take a while before I came to realize that, the fisherman does not measure his world in the same way I did. I was taught to think in terms of inches and feet. If I had a stalk of bamboo eight feet long and needed six feet to make a trap, I would cut off the remaining two feet and, thereby, waste it. The fisherman would simply leave the two feet and make a slightly bigger trap. His measures are organic and simple. Dangaw, dupa, gapsanan -- these are how lengths are divided. His criteria for beauty, his aesthetics are of a world I hardly know.
The fisherman knows certain things outside my experience. I have read many books, but where was the book to describe to me the difference between mine and this fisherman's concept of space. I would have loved to play the violin or paint a picture for this man. But did I know how?
The world is a universe which needs constantly to be redefined. Whether or not they work for a purpose, artists constantly help in redefining this universe. Unfortunately, if the artist is always drawing his water from another man's well, his world will always be defined for him. The artist simply quotes or he imitates. In doing this, the artist does not fail his art. He fails his own people. He fails to do what is good.
The answer to the question, What is good art?, is neither technical or academic. It is almost purely ethical. Good art is good strictly in the moral sense.
Every piece of art, every piece of poetry tells the story of its maker. What is his purpose for doing this art. The work itselfs answers the question. Is the artist a good person? Does he participate with his world or is he only proving how good he is? Is he surrendering or fighting back? Is he telling us a story we have not yet heard? Is he offering a thing of value or selling snake oil? And it is important for every viewer of the art to ask: For whom is this art? Whom does it serve?
In a way, we are all Indio playing the violin. It is time for us to ask: Whose music do we play? For whom and why? To ask these questions is good poetry. It is certainly good art. To answer these questions: that is good purpose.