|
ART FOR BABIES
To discuss on the topic of “Art for babies” you have to consider, what kind of specimen art is to begin with.
Is art equal to entertainment, or do you expect that art might do something more? Has art an educational purpose? Is it supposed to contribute to education, or is it ok, if it is floating in an open space of it’s own?
There is a difference in opinion on what’s the purpose of art. I don’t necessarily subscribe to the point of view, that art has to be pedagogical or educational.
My bid is, that art is working with the spirit.
Three levels of man.
Having said this, one has to define what is meant by spirit.
I believe that man is functioning on 3 levels: Body, mind and spirit.
The Body – the physical manifestation of who we are.
The mind – our intellect, thoughts and emotional life.
The spirit - our highest and inmost – the soul, that associates us with one another and with the universal conciseness.
A lot of entertainment passes through the recipient, as a light touch of the feelings or the intellect. It could be a funny song or a sad movie. A casual acquaintance without much importance.
The art, on the other hand, reaches further out/in. The task of the artist is to penetrate the mind, and “touch” the recipient on a deeper level (the spirit).
To reveal an endless moment of incomprehensible beauty, a flash of creative inspiration, a graze of the source of the eternity, to use some big words.
This doesn’t necessarily mean, that the art in it self has to be terribly complicated. It can, I suppose, in it’s own way be merely simple, as long as the aim is to be a hundred percent present, here and now. To be completely present, willing to have more than just a cosy while with the audience.
Baby meets the art.
Here comes the next big question. Where do we place the babies in proportion to the art?
If we suppose, that art has something to do with spiritual matters, we have to ask the inevitable question: Is the newly born human less developed in spiritual matters, than those with a longer history are?
I don’t think it is necessarily so, and this is in fact the really fun part, and the most interesting, in terms of performing art – in my case, music – for babies.
It certainly is evident, that babies have at lot of skills to adapt, in terms of motor function (the body) and intellectual and emotional development (the mind). I don’t think, however, that we adults automatically can assume, that we are farther in our spiritual development than the babies. Therefor we have to meet them eye to eye, in the art we want to introduce them to. This is not to say, that you can not present art in ways, which strongly appeals to babies and small children.
A beautiful drawing of an animal, recognisable to the child, is often a fantastic way of presenting a piece of music.
But I think that the music, in its purest form without words, can be understood exactly as clearly by a baby as by an adult, without being simplified at all.
I would at that go so far as to say, that small children in fact have certain advantages to adults.
To move and touche an audience is, to the artist, demanding, as well as it is for the audience itself.
It demands that the recipient allows himself to be moved and touched and dares open to what ever might come. Children are way ahead in this process compared to adults.
They simply are more sensitive to the the surroundings. The road that leads inside, directly to “the deep strings” (the spirit) is far more passable – a four tracked motorway - compared to the long and winding roads of the adults. They haven’t yet developed means of analysis like the adults have, and which sometimes stand in the way for our access to artistic experience. Young children still have the tremendous opportunity to receive art plainly.
Is art necessary?
Then the final question is: Is it necessary to introduce art to babies?
Yes!!
Just like we as human being need to “move” ourselves in a physically manner, I think, we also need to be “moved” and “touched” in a spiritually sense. We need nutrition to grow – not only in a physical context, but also mentally and spiritually as well.
If we don’t get nutrition, we wither. We’d become uninspired, and we lose our vitality and energy.
And again, I’m sure that this is a fact, whether we are brand new or experienced in this world. I simply don’t see, that things could be any different, just because we were newly born.
The world has a wonderful lot of colours and hopefully it stays that way. Lets not keep the children from the good experience of art just becauce we think they don’t need it or even understand it.
Do let them go “out of sense”. It is among other things what art is all about and exactly the potential of small children.
I have known this experience during the project “Glitterbird”, and it has been a wonderful and relieving acknowledgement.
Written by Sille Grønberg – guitarist, composer and singer in the band Djanzz
|
