Art Reboot

37 5 the nature of revolution in art There are only two fundamental revolutions as art evolves. The first happens when we recognise art as something distinct from other aspects of life, and begin to explore its potential. Whether art was separated for spiritual, practical, decorative or sensual reasons is incidental; what matters is the impulse and result, pro- viding us with a new domain of perception and expression, a new vehicle of evolving consciousness. Once our intellects began to interpret their surroundings, they were able to make a huge leap in communicative capa- city. One upshot of this is that primitive arts were put to use in the all-important animistic role of communing with a spirit realm, manifested in the images created by early humans in the womb-like caves of the world: everything from handprints and pictures of animals to pictorial stories of the hunt for those animals. Regardless of how this process evolved in different cul- tures over the ages, the urge to employ the arts in the ser- vice of higher purpose – whether communing with spirits or storing knowledge for future generations – was a universal one, and it set the stage for the second revolution – a revolution against the intellect itself.