Charles Gatt Art and Peace
I hope I will be forgiven for introducing a sober matter with one that is personal and close to my experience. As a musician I enjoy working with a group where my effort is to seek a common feeling while everyone improvises in his own individual manner The outcome of this situation is the integration of solo expression in a group of free -thinking individuals who enter, feel and become the music with one harmonic goal in mind. Jazz is at once music of the individual and music of the collective-a balance between freedom and necessity.
We can carry the concept of the individual and the collective to arrive at an idea of peace through art. Art is not influenced by differences in culture, living standards or even spiritual viewpoint. It is obvious that the most powerful aspirations of mankind are coming from the same root. The intimate experiences of the heart and spirit are a reality which can be communicated and which every other human being can respond to, no matter how far removed their expression may be from one's own particular habit of thought. This allows everyone to find his own way and discipline.
Today, information technology has turned us into passive observers of all the political and economic crimes that are being committed. We all discuss the relationship between politics and faith, the development of the poor nations of the world, the place of the individual within society. We need to promote the arts as a symbol of freedom. The arts can protect us against the manipulation of the controlling media and help us avoid further blackmail into impotence. Art can help us find universal reference points which can also be guidelines in the life of each individual person.
Besides thinking, feeling and wanting, the creative urge possesses a sense of goodwill, self-respect together with respect for others and a desire to transform things for the better. Picasso said 'You must do everything with love.' Love is the secret of art's transforming power. This power can help us come clean from this environment of materialism, power, consumerism and hedonism.
Joseph Beuys said that all men are artists. We might only be art lovers. If everyone approaches his work with love we can hope that this will lead us to a harmonious adaptation of our individual differences.
