Scream

Here's the follow-up of the Internet inspirations.
In today's update of the PostSecret I came across Munch's "Scream" with the sentence "I'm afraid there's nothing worth making art about anymore" written on it.
At first I was surprised by he mere fact that anybody should consider a conclusion like this one as their secret – that they should put their emotions on issue like that, feelings strong enough to choose it to be their representative, which would fight hundreds of other secrets on their way to Frank Warren, just like, say, the sperm cells squeezing themselves to get to the ovum. To me it proves that the PostSecret project is one of the greatest artistic ventures, which concentrates the motives from within the humanities.
But what surprised me even more was the wording of the secret; the person doesn't fear that all artistic forms are already worn-out, all words – already written down, important pieces of music – composed, the most beautiful frames – captured. Neither they anticipate the art or culture themselves are getting worn-out and soon won't find any place for them in this world, the fragmentary world feeding on icons and some few minutes films. For the first time in my life I came across such a sinister prophecy saying that this world isn't an inspiration any more. That it doesn't provide us with food for thought and doesn't stimulate the emotional realm nor does it preserve any elements decent enough to give the starting point for the artists, which was probably the main point of the secret's author.
It's a fact that for hundreds of years (always meaning the 20. century) the world has been said to be tumbling down on an inclined plain. The big mama named Civilization allegedly makes the moral values go bad and the short-lived technological crap has changed our every day into cheap duplicated creation devoid even of good entertainment. All that hes already been said millions of times before. This and the thing about the World War II, the complete decay of human, and then of the great Idea in the communism's incarnation. Plus the climate is going mad and Russia and China fill my head with fatalistic nightmares.
But I would never think that among it all there are no glimmers worth being thought over, ones that could find their continuation in art.
Which has noting to do with optimism.
Some time ago in his Different Point of View program Grzegorz Miecugow would every so often ask his guests, mainly artists, to try and compare the conditions of artistic work within the Polish People's Republic and today, in the so-called free Poland. He asked the question why the Polish culture, the high one, the mass one, was so poor when compared with what was created under fire of the ideology, censorship and intent eye of the USSR. The conclusion Miceugow with his guest came to would usually indicate the inspiring power of working Against. It was the wall in the face of which and against which one would create art, that turned out to be the impulsive power as important as the artist's natural gifts and imagination. The process of working against the conditions today seems to have been much more productive than the blissful freedom among the shits of the capitalistic Poland.
Which has nothing to do with praising the communism or the planned economy.
I suppose doing art in the world of socialist realism consisted in some certainty in using bright values (perfectly camouflaged, of course), the values that were contrary to the dark political system. I guess it had something of heroism, but also some lightness following the clear division between the good and bad characters.
Today it's undoubtedly much more difficult to point the villains, but there are surely phenomena, ideas and concepts, against which one should come out. Also, the human does have weapon - life has become poor in so many realms, that even the vague idea of any alternative already makes fine arms.
Even when a phenomenon which would be contrary to the real conditions doesn't exist at all.
One of the reasons why I like books and journalism by Jeanette Winterson is her, say, positive old-fashioned-ness; her passion for life consisting of precious, sophisticated elements; the single ones, being an effect of meticulous, arduous work – against the repeated pieces of plastic of the present time, the slapdash-ness and consumerism, all grown so great that they seem to fill the space once occupied by the single pearls.
Are the wrong proportions, on which the world is based on, supposed to be irrevocable and definitive only because they are a fact? Every Buddhist knows there is no significant difference between the existence and non-existence.
Besides. "the most tangible / description of bread /is a description of hunger / in it is / the damp porous core / the warm interior / the breasts belly thighs of Cybele / a spring-clear / transparent description / of water / is a description of thirst / ashes / desert / it produces a mirage / clouds and trees move into / the mirror" – wrote Tadeusz Różewicz in his "Draft of a Modern Love Poem". "Lack hunger / absence / of flesh / is a description of love / is a modern love poem".

In the greatest darkness there is no lack of light, no lack of precious growth medium for the art.

[The poem translated by Magnus J. Krynski and Robert A. Maguire]