Update on Evolution Through Art

Akhenaten

Celebrating a little bit tonight, lol, with a cup of coffee. I finished Part One of my inaugural attempt at a book. Already been copy edited, thumps up. Finished are the Intro plus 6 chapters, and 17,000 words. Some of the ground will be familiar to artists and art historians, but I hope it will make deep inroads in the psychology of art and give sense of these artists being alive and transcending time.

This is one of the paragraphs from the 3rd Chapter, Trepidation, Art is Not Tangible and Yet …

The early artist would have been shifting valuable efforts away from life-sustaining work towards the abstract pursuit of art. All animals engage in life-sustaining action, but it would appear as if  the artist was rejecting this. Visual art, then as now, has no utilitarian purpose, none whatsoever. Art could not mend things, carve arrows, and build fires. It was not a tool. It did not give warmth, shelter, food, or security. In practical terms it was useless. Diverting resources for such an senseless art adventure would be perceived as a psychosis, the artist having a partial or total break with reality.

Part Two – PSYCHOLOGICAL POWER PLAYS is going to be intense examining the PsyOp power of art, with its positive effects and the people that want to abuse it. I am pretty sure the book as a whole will be empowering to artists and art lovers, but definitely challenging. I already have its first chapter done, Visual Art: A Special Language.

Below is the outline for the first part.

Michael Newberry, Idyllwild, 5/6/2020

Art – Integrator of the Human Mind

• Guardian Spirit

Part One
THE QUEST

1 THE BRIDGE TO HUMANITY

• Doorway to Self Awareness
• Magnificent Spirit Animals

2 FUTURE STATES

• Zoomorphic Superhero: The First Figurative Artwork
• Venus: Talisman, Fertility, or Erotic Object?

3 TREPIDATION

• Art is Not Tangible and Yet ...

4 AWAKENING

• A Mental Library
• Internal Dialogs
• An Evolutionary System?
• Transmitting Knowledge Over Time

5 THE WIZARDS

• Young da Vinci and Pure Light Vibrations
• Commensurable of Parts
• Michelangelo’s Start
• Lorenzo de Medici and His Humanists
• “They Go Away!”
• Listen to Your Soul

6 CULTIVATION

• A Friend of Lions
• Awestruck
• Hymn to Aten: Love of Life?
• Rejecting the Old Ways
• Thutmose Magnificent Faces: Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and King Tut

Part Two
PSYCHOLOGICAL POWER PLAYS