On the Precipice

I do not really know why I like this title, but I suppose, firstly I suffer from vertigo, and being on the edge of a precipice would quite frankly scare the living daylights out me. I also like the sound of precipice, it is one of my "Desert Island" favourite sounding words. There is also a connection with another word I like, sublime. The two of course are connected in art. The lonely figure on the edge - oh how Romantic! The painting above "The Bard" (1814) by the English painter, John Martin (1789-1854) and the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) for example "The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog" (1818), capture quite nicely the feeling of being on a precipice. It puts oneself in perspective with regard to the big picture of Nature or God. I think the metaphor of being on the precipice, suggests to me, a change of such enormity, that one might be changed forever. Do we stand on the precipice today? Perhaps so, the very Nature that we have worshipped for thousands of years, is slipping away from us. Maybe there is no Nature today, only Artifice? If so, why do we let one animal rip into another, when we know that the latter is rare or beloved, should we not intervene? Is it a form of negligence when a documentary maker leaves a cheetah cub to be consumed by a hyena? Or should we continue with the pretence and let Nature take its course? What about, staying with the media, the possibility that we cannot act outside the Media, and that its interests direct our lives, and run our governments? Why would the President of the United States eat fastfood with the President of Russia, except for the pressure of a popularist driven Media? Are we on the precipice of not existing in our right, except as an avatar of the Media?

Then there is Art. I love art. Now where is the art in Art?