A Metaphysical Theory of Art

During the mid-twentieth century, a freak accident confines an American painter to the Californian desert. Having few possessions to his name, he stumbles upon a large cave and soon finds food, water, and furniture (the previous inhabitant had been well stocked). He realises that surviving will be easy. His problem lies in finding something to do. Something to occupy his time.

He begins to compose works of art, but, having no audience, then contemplates the deeper meanings of his efforts. He concludes with a stream of constructive thoughts, relying on a self-preserving philosophy. Through creating art, he maps himself against his surroundings; he eventually comes to understand his place in the world.

Paul Auster’s Moon Palace (1989) spans three generations of stories. The protagonist, M. S. Fogg, narrates the novel's primary tale and fills it with secrets and surprises. Fogg grows up in New York and meets the elderly and elusive Thomas Effing. Aware that his time on earth is limited, Effing employs Fogg to listen to his life’s tale, recording every detail.

As a painter, Effing spends a year in the desert, and Auster details Effing's journey of self-discovery. 

The true purpose of art was not to create beautiful objects, he discovered. It was a method of understanding, a way of penetrating the world and finding one’s place in it, and whatever aesthetic qualities an individual canvas might have were almost an incidental by-product of the effort to engage oneself in this struggle, to enter into the thick of things. [. . .] He was no longer afraid of the emptiness around him. (p. 166).

Metaphysics is the study of what is real - the first principles of things - in terms of abstract concepts. Auster describes the metaphysical elements of art, ‘penetrating the world’ with creative acts, understanding where the work of art stands as a mere ‘by-product’ of the artist’s efforts. For Auster, the journey is more important than the end. If art is about ‘finding one’s place in the world’, then quality is secondary. In this existential frame of mind, art is selfish: no-one else’s dream or vision matters.

However, a core problem exists. Auster’s representation of the artist at work undervalues how creators understand their viewers. Granted: Auster’s fiction places the audience in a redundant position. If the artist lives in isolation, then who cares about their artwork? 

But artists have always been self-conscious of viewership. For example, the nineteenth-century poet, G. M. Hopkins, never published during his lifetime. He shared his poems privately with friends and fellow poets - at least having a small but cherished network of readers to comment upon his work. Good artists love their audience. They practice empathy to understand how outsiders would perceive, interact, and understand their artwork.

Auster’s unusual world still conveys a sense of truth. Art is healing, both for the artist and consumer of art, and this core message rises from his stupendous works of fiction.

Wassily Kandinsky's Squares with Concentric Circles 
watercolour on paper, 1913