Life Inspires Art - Then Life Imitates Art

To make sense of man's measurements of days and years, the stars and celestial bodies were looked to.
The moon became an idol for some peoples, a symbol of religious significance for others (crescent moon).
To me, these are natural art forms designed by the Great Artist Himself... for our enjoyment.
This world is an open museum teaching continual lessons on humanity, nature, His Presence and His Way.

What is the order and food chain regarding humanity and its art?

To me, it reads like this:

1) Life Inspires Art

Before man began doodling on cave walls, or drawing in the sand, or writing intelligible words, he spoke of things observed and of things imagined.

Mankind's art was cerebral, and then physical when that effort was made... thus art followed life... and life inspired art.

In due time, discord made its way into the world.
Instead of clear faces, people's identity was split and made dissonant...
like these images - they reflect such as interpreted by this observer.

2) Art Imitates Life

Mankind has imitated the natural world around him.

A more recent imitation in the current / modern era is the invention of flying aircrafts.

Although some may speculate flying aircrafts existed in times past, this speculation is possible due to the fact that some civilizations left little trace of their exploits.

We have an unclear picture of the past, a story half told in many ways.

Some fountains of knowledge and record keeping were systematically destroyed by conquering peoples in the past, and this continues to happen in certain peculiar ways up to the current.

So to conclude that man's imagination is directly related to the things that man sees, hears, touches, and smells in the natural world is quite accurate, and thus art imitates life.

If you can make out the quote, it is loosely based on Shakespeare's work.
An idea, or suggestion, made in the realm of 'art' can become tomorrow's headline news.
This is how politics influences art and art in return influences politics.

3) Art Instigates Life

The foundation of keeping the law in any particular society is continuing with things already established or extrapolated as 'good' or 'worthy' or 'valuable'.

Not every law made by man is, on its own, 'good' or even 'just', for it is when we look at the perfect Law, and that which preceded man's imitations and edits of natural law and its obvious order, is when we see things run afoul and distinguished from right and wrong, good and bad.

When God's law is ignored, or censored, or replaced by man's law or man's imitation of God's law, then you see art instigating life.

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. 

For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. 

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. 

- Romans 1: 18-27

Science explains, what observation and simple experience ascertains, that lighting a single flame to a flammable substance can cause a blaze to erupt.

Science can go into great detail to identify the labeled elements, the temperature settings, wind direction, and many more specifics as to how a tiny flame can turn into thousands of acres or an entire city / town / village burned.

Once a child lights a match to a dry leaf or, as I did to the dried leaves of my grandparent's sugarcane plant in their backyard, they learn how a small fire can quickly get out of control.

The child does not perceive an immediate danger or the threat to a home.

This is due to their ignorance... but those older know the danger very well.

So it also is when God's law is replaced by an imitation, or edited to coddle humanity's weaknesses and inherent duplicity.

In this case, when man's 'art' is writing laws that obscure or contradict what is clear in God's law, it is evil.

Thus why historically one can see how the manner art instigates life and allows depravity to run rampant... causing societies to fall apart.

Animals are a gift from God to mankind.
They are companions, sources of amusement, and for some, food.
They teach us many things, and many things are yet to be discovered from them.
But man has always attempted to raise the animal above the human,
and in every generation there is animal worship.
Instead of the animal being added to man's importance,
we see people being stepped over so an animal can be saved.

4) Life imitates Art

I numbered these four rudiments regarding life and art's correlation to show progression.

Progression not in the sense that something actually progressed (or has become 'better'), but how one thing leads to another.

Surely there is progress and maturity evident in almost all societies currently present on earth, and each has its own level of backwardness and archaic faults.

Historians and social scientists may better describe the manner man's art has saturated life.

For some people, life (existence based on the natural world and God's law) has become indistinguishable from art (inventions from duality, duplicity from confusion).

When I was a child, I put a sheet around my neck and draped it over my back thinking I could fly.

I thought jumping off the couch would help me get airborne.

I had seen Superman, but somehow the cape wasn't working for me.

Art has many wonderful attributes, many good lessons and good intentions.
Interpretation is a variable when it comes to art.
One interpretation may view a piece of art as good, while another as detrimental.
The canvas of one's heart is largely what interprets life and art, as mentioned here.

When as a child I asked my grandmother if she could buy me some spinach, I was hoping to gain massive strength so I can better handle bullies at school and on the street.

When she cooked me some spinach leaves, I ate them but nothing happened.

I complained that the spinach had to come directly from the can (just like the cartoon).

When she brought home the can, I was so excited I couldn't contain myself.

Begging her to quickly open the can so I can gulp the spinach down like Popeye did, I was grossed out when I saw the contents.

I couldn't even try it.

She laughed and asked what did I expect.

I kinda felt like this humorous clip from a favorite movie of mine depicts.

A few more of these lessons correcting my naive life imitating the art on television was enough to settle me into realizing that not everything on television is real, or true, or even actual.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 

- 1 Corinthians 13: 11

But have some adults in today's world reached this conclusion?

I don't think so.

I think some people, in some irrational manner have confused or justified or have suspended the real world with the art world that has indulged the minds of the masses.

Some people have taken their life lessons from the art world, as described in this BBC News article:

In the 1990s, he ran a gang involved in armed robbery and extortion in the French capital. He has previously said his lifestyle was inspired by Hollywood gangster films, including the Al Pacino thriller Scarface. 

He is said to be devoted to Robert De Niro movies and the stylised crime thrillers of US director Michael Mann. 

He once approached Mann, who helmed the 1995 gangster film Heat, at a Paris film festival and told him: "You were my technical adviser." 

Faid claimed to have watched the movie dozens of times to hone his skills as a bank robber.

Think of music and how a certain mindset continues to be perpetuated and advancing in places crime, or gangsterism, was previously nonexistent.

This is how extremism has crept into sleepy and peaceful places all over the earth.

Good ideas, like loving your neighbor as yourself, doing to others as you would have them do to you, and loving your enemies and blessing them, can quickly spread and build more good.

So also can bad ideas.

One man's religious zealotry allows him to murder another man who doesn't agree or follow specific religious rituals of the zealous man.

The zealous man quotes a poetry book that is hailed as being 'revealed' from an angel... and much death has followed this legend.

That book's poetry, and the poet called a prophet, has messages purely metaphorical, yet at other times very literal when calling for the beheading of those not part of the identity.

A screen shot of a hostile time and place is somehow idealized, but is simply an artist's rendition (in this case a poet) in reflecting a culture still waiting light and love from the Savior.

Media is immeasurably psychologically influential on children and adults alike.

In the argument for freedom of expression and freedom of speech, irresponsibility and immaturity have been imitated as dignified and mature.

With great freedoms come great responsibilities, but I see many children running around with flames in their hands.

One person's right and demand of sexual freedom is simply their argument to be free to sleep with as many people as they can, and let the consequences be damned.

Think of pornography and how the physical has been obscuring the spiritual and the noble.

Sexuality has been promoted as unbridled lust instead of a small part of love between a man and woman.

In place of spiritual and character growth that comes through fidelity and consideration for even the smallest needs of another soul, a focus on one's individual physical needs is paramount.

Think of faith and how the arts of religion have clouded that gift and turned it into compounding rituals.

Think of depravity and how the rainbow promised restraint from a certain kind of destruction (water deluge).

Destruction came because of depravity and wickedness.

There was no effort to restrain lust and the unnatural.

The rainbow's symbol is not one of allowing depravity, yet the rainbow today has been 'artistically' redefined and is used to promote the very depravity that brought the deluge and destruction.

Next time it won't be a watery deluge that clears away the depravity - separating the holy from the unholy - but fire.

Consider your clothes, and the manner of speech you use, and think if you are reflecting the real world or some artist's rendition of the world in terms of identity or in reflecting human idols.

In certain terms I have become as strong as Popeye after eating my spinach.

In certain ways I have become as invincible as Superman after realizing who I am (like Superman realized one day).

My spinach, however, isn't a green vegetable out of a can, but food from Above.

My superpowers are not earthly or based on the material plane, but spiritual.

By His command I take flight, am allowed super vision, and am gifted attributes beyond the pale comparison of the artist's rendition of a super man or a good natured sailor.

I am a sailor of sorts, and also a fisherman of a particular type: fishing for men to board my sailing vessel.

I am a super man, but always dressed like and incognito like Clark Kent.

Faults still I have, the thorns having their purpose despite my displeasure of their existence.

As the rainbow revealed grace for certain individuals, so also Today there exists grace for certain individuals.

As Noah had his part to play, his role to fulfill, so also have I a role and part... and so do you.

Is your life imitating God's art, or the art of men?

Is your art a form that promotes love and light, or is it something wholly imagined and beyond what God has reflected in His Messiah?

Is your life a work of His art, or something else?

May God bless our work, and may our hearts reflect His works of art.