The thermometer read 100ºF, and that wasn’t anything special for August. It’s the kind of heat that really makes you appreciate air conditioning. As I explored the rock formations of northern Arizona, there was no shade in which to hide from the relentless desert sun. High up on a cliff face, hunters chased wild rams across 15,000-year-old carvings. When I climbed the scaffolding, I wiped a bead of sweat from my brow and, for the longest time, stood there just looking. I raised my camera to my eye and snapped a photo. An hour later, a herd of rams grazed on the side of the road, and I pulled over just to look. In that moment, those two experiences clicked together in my mind like LEGO bricks: ancient art and living animals intertwined. This memory gives me pause and calls me to reflect on the nature of modern art.
Dating back to our hunter-gatherer days, art has been a fundamental part of what it means to be human. American novelist Theodore Dreiser once said, “Art is the stored honey of the human soul, gathered on wings of misery.” Despite unending wars and the tide of empires, we have dared to create. Artists take the wretched beauty of living and turn it into something we can not only see or hear, but feel. No culture or people is devoid of art. Though it takes different forms, art transcends borders and speaks a common language. Art is humankind’s common denominator.
Art serves no utilitarian purpose; it doesn’t cover our heads when it rains or fill our stomachs when we’re hungry, but it’s as much a part of what makes us human as to breathe or blink. In the aftermath of the First World War, modernist art flourished as people shell-shocked by war wrestled with incomprehensible trauma. Many artists took refuge in the minimalist twists and turns that portrayed a kind of loss of innocence. “Without art,” George Bernard Shaw once said, “the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.” For many, art is an escape from reality, and for others, it is a form of political and social resistance that responds to the moment. Art can do more than make us feel something; it can call us to action.
When you stand before a painting or a sculpture, it’s not just a work of art you’re looking at––it’s a fleeting moment of someone’s soul. It’s their raw emotion, their quiet rebellion, their unspoken sorrow etched into every stroke of the brush and cut of the chisel. Our museums are monuments to the human experience.
One criticism of modern art is that it’s simplistic. Critics often point to works by Picasso and argue that even a child could paint something similar, but this overlooks a key difference between Picasso and fingerpainting. Looking at Picasso’s earlier work, you’ll notice it leans toward realism. In fact, you would never know you’re looking at a Picasso. Instead, his later style, which became so synonymous with his name, was a conscious choice. Every choice an artist makes tells a story, and Picasso was no different.
Some argue that modern art is uncreative, that it doesn’t require talent, but art has never been about talent. Art has always been about the human soul. Picasso’s gradual movement from realism to abstraction wasn’t a decline in skill; it was a conversation with his past and an exploration of the self.
The beautiful thing about art is that it’s entirely subjective. It’s not meant to be compared or contrasted. There’s no such thing as good or bad art. There are no pure forms of art because it speaks differently to everyone. Art has no single definition. Mozart isn’t any better than Radiohead, and Caravaggio isn’t better than Picasso, because art stands on its own.
The hands that dot the face of the Arizona cliff are palms that link the human story together, millennia apart. Art, in all its forms, is a mirror. It reminds us of our struggles, our triumphs, and the stories we have yet to tell. It challenges us not only to look at the world through a new lens and ask questions, but more importantly, to feel. The stick figures etched into that Arizona wall aren’t triumphs of anatomical accuracy, but they tell us a story about ourselves. Art is a reminder of where we’ve been, where we are, and where we are headed. And as art continues to change, and as we continue to create, the question becomes: How will our art speak to the future, and what stories will we tell about ourselves?