The Use of Mood 
/ Humanity in Art

Keith  O'Connor:   My  Writings  on Art

 

 last update
dec 1999
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This is the fifth in a series of six sections that I am developing in unison. Even though they are at the  work in progress stage I have been asked by fellow artists to present them as is. Every few days I work on one or more of them I will often edit what I have previously written.

An actor has the choice of using  one of two sources of emotion to develop his/her character. The actor can look inside for previously experienced emotion that can be used to animate the character, or study the behaviour and manerisms of other people, absorbing them to be later used to animate the character.

The painter can decide to explore feelings of depression and express those feelings in graphic terms to such a degree that the viewer will come to the conclusion that the artist is in a deep state of depression.

Both the actor and the painter have one thing in common, both can enter as state of depression at will and both can exit the state of depression at will. That is the objective state of mind the artist must reach. The average person cannot control depression once in it they have a hard time getting out.

Mood must be subservient to the element of humanity in art. To me the highest level of art expresses some aspect of the human condition.

The actor uses facial and body language to express the interior mood of  the character. The graphic artist uses shapes and colours to express the interior mood of the painting.

A supplementary question becomes: how are shapes and colours influenced by culture? This leads to the exploring of both cultural influences and personal influences on painting.
 

This I will explore in more depth later.
 
 

________this section will discuss mood in depth and will be developed further_____