When considering the canon, that is, the body of masterworks that a given culture treasures, it is worth considering what exactly makes a masterpiece, and indeed why the masterpiece has such a powerful influence, why it is more than a mere artwork. For literature, for example, aspects such as linguistic virtuosity, emotional depth, psychological ‘realism’ (as in insightful,
not strictly realistic), thematic complexity and depth, as well as a clear and interesting engagement with not only other works of literature, but also many aspects of life (be it
philosophy, history, science, psychology, and so on), are all what I would consider to be uncontroversial characteristics of the literary masterpiece. However, all of these are irrelevant
to the true and central characteristic of the masterwork, which is namely a kind of paradox, a miracle, whereby the work of art excels to such a degree that it attains a perfection so
peculiar, so specific to itself, that it thereby transcends being a work of art and becomes something else, taking on new life, and yet it remains confined to what it is, a mere artwork.
If you were to visit any local art gallery, you would be met with paintings that are certainly varied in form and subject matter, but the one defining aspect of these artworks is that they
are in fact just that, artworks. When I stroll through a room in such a gallery, I am not particularly interested in the form, subject matter, or theme of these works. Of course, I can
certainly recognise these aspects, recognise that this is a religious painting, this is a history painting, this one uses a particular technique, that this looks like a painting from a
particular period or movement, and so on. Yet the one thought that endures through such a visit and shortly after is the fact that these paintings are just that, paintings. They are so
perfectly captured by their bare definitions that they almost seem like platonic ideals: when I see a bowl of fruit on a canvas, I feel like I have seen every still life that has ever been
and ever will be produced. There is something almost sublime in a work that is so average, being so devoid of particularness that it almost seems to encompass all other similar works at
once, and yet it is so confined to being what it merely is, a very unremarkable work of art, one of many thousands upon thousands that have been produced over the years.
In considering such works, it allows us to understand what I think is the defining aspect of the aesthetic, namely the experience of a paradoxical state in which the work of art
simultaneously escapes from and is crushed under the bare definition of what it is. Of course, this applies to virtually any kind of experience, but it is felt most powerfully with art.
The crucial difference, however, between the mere artwork and the masterpiece, is the latter’s ability to successfully escape its bonds, to let slip its definitions, to run free and revel
in an entirely new space, filled with a new life, and yet remain bound to the canvas and the page, bound to the forms, themes and conventions in which all other works of art partake. Great
art, indeed, is not driven by concerns of beauty, instruction, legacy, or whatever else. It is defined by the attempt to demonstrate a particular kind of event, namely the miracle in which
something attains such perfection that it simultaneously acts as the ideal of a particular type of thing while at the same time going beyond the definitions of that very same type of thing.
I would argue that this miracle should not only stand at the heart of any kind of ethic, but art is the primary means by which we bear witness to this miracle, and that therefore art’s
primacy should be advocated for endlessly in the face of all contenders.
Of course, scoffing in the face of aesthetes is certainly justified. I have always felt there is little difference between the men sitting in the terrace and the opera box, and I have
always detested that self-importance associated with ‘good taste’. Pleasure should be no guide, and neither should mores, convention, and least of all ‘taste’, which really translates to
conditioning. Anyone even half-familiar with the canon would know its diversity, a motley crowd both bawdy and chaste, zealous and blasphemous, much like the audience that presumably sat
(or stood) watching the first performances of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Fat old men look down on the young who mope through readings of that very same play, totally ignorant as to why they
could not care less. It is because they do not care for anything at all, least of all old books. But who is to blame for such apathy? I don’t need to answer that.
Regardless, what is at stake here is not the revival of these works (for they shall live forever), but rather reviving ourselves, specifically our sense for these works and their
centrality to life. But it is not a moral or intellectual revival. Indeed, it is not even an experiential revival, but rather a recognition of the central importance of the miraculous
phenomenon outlined above. Furthermore, I would argue that any and all perception of artistic inertia or failure is tied to fewer occurrences of this very same phenomenon. If we consider
the frontiers spied out in the previous century, who would disagree that they have already been surveyed and populated with chattering wagon trains? Rock was the sound of half a century,
but who would disagree that its last hoorah was in the 1990s, and that the genre is now populated by curators and ‘taste-makers’ whose merit derives mainly from their sound
‘recontextualising’ (whatever this means) works made several decades in the past. The finest antiquarians of today are to be found in the metal and punk scenes; if it wasn’t for curious
youths in search of personalities, a hardcore gig would more resemble a family gathering of 40 year old men in cargo shorts fondly staring at the latest shade of loud on stage as if it was
a finely made copy of their dear departed mother’s fine china.
I have already indicated my disdain for convention, but even I must acknowledge it is somewhat mortifying to claim video games as the latest frontier (despite this being completely true).
Yet even here do we catch the long sigh of fixed forms, devoid of that miraculousness so crucial to art’s restoration of life. Anyone even vaguely familiar with the medium would be aware
of its golden age stretching somewhere from the mid 1980s up to the late 2000s, a period in which a single game could represent a technological leap or genre innovation so substantial, so
significant as to influence the rest of the industry. Entire genres and franchises were birthed (or at least revived) when a San Mateo studio released a certain hack-and-slash dungeon
crawler in early 1997, despite the prevailing sentiment at the time being that RPGs were dead. One of the finest stories in the medium centres around a certain Maryland studio in the late
1990s who, on the brink of failing as a business, determined to produce a sequel to its main series that constituted not only a return to form, but a deliberate progression in terms of
technology and design that acted as the blueprint of virtually all open-world games from that point onwards. To think that the former studio is no longer with us, and the latter is
currently wallowing in the murk of its own goodwill, while others play with the rubble they chipped off the edifice that was that magical release of 2002.
In answer to accusations of nostalgia, I say only that it is undeniable that these formative periods of art (for example, the 1970s and 80s for punk and metal, the late 1990s-early 2000s
for Western RPGs) stand apart mainly due to the miraculous character of their creative output, that is, they were periods in which artists produced numerous works which align with the
joyful paradox of the masterpiece. This is plainly evidenced by the fact that such works are still used as the primary reference point for artists working within these genres and mediums
today. Many of these artists today produce great works, but a work being great is not enough to warrant the label of masterpiece. Indeed, a work may excel in every way (including in the
ways that literary classics excel, as outlined above), but as should be obvious by now it is not the quality of a work, nor its beauty or morality, but rather in the way it breaks its
definitions and takes on new life that makes an artwork a masterpiece. In answer to accusations of obscurity, I say only that I cannot, indeed could not offer an answer. As should be
obvious by now, I have used the word ‘miracle’ and ‘paradox’ several times now to underline that what lies at the heart of the masterpiece is the unintelligble. The effect of the
masterpiece is comparable to that of the ‘thing-in-itself’ and its associated phenomena: I can experience this thing, this work of art, and feel that lying behind, beneath, or within it is
a life or will that with one coy glance could root me to the spot, a joy that generously allows itself to be fixed to the dimensions of the work while constantly breaking free to delight
itself with unknown dances under nameless skies. For a moment, we can catch glimpses of this joy and its world, and yet we are always rudely expelled with nothing but an invitation to
return. It is exactly this invitation which should stand at the heart of any ethic, and indeed proves the need for art to justify life, or at the very least offer a curative. I will not
recommend it as the object of hope, but I will say that the masterpiece, specifically the experience of the masterpiece as miracle, as paradox, as bounded yet boundless, as dead object and
living subject, as simultaneously the ideal yet transcending that ideal, should sit at the centre of our thoughts and deliberations, and that we should live to experience such works in
order to become like them, that is, to become so perfectly human that we would be both ourselves and more than ourselves, to take on new life while remaining completely the same. But I will
leave the mechanics of such an ethic for another time.
