Social Roles, Art,

and Making Sense of the World

Rockwell’s characterisation of American life in the Saturday Evening Post

captured the hearts of several generations. He was unequivocally

one of the 20^th century’s most successful artists. My interest

in him dated from my days with Bradford Exchange,

who built a major business out of reproducing his art

on plates. There were scores of them, and they

sold like hot cakes.

Sensing that there were fundamental lessons

to learn here, I tried to organise his work into categories,

tried to see if I could find characteristic situations that appeared

and reappeared time and again. They were not hard to find. At that time I

recognised five core categories:

The Challenge

The Kindness

The Dream

The Joy

The Surprise

These archetypal situations are, every one,

about the pursuit of pleasure. It may be pleasure right now (the Joy);

it may be pleasure in the future or the past (the Dream); it may be in the

tackling of an obstacle to the pleasure (the Challenge/Impasse);

it may be in helping someone else find that pleasure (Helping);

or in finding pleasure in unexpected ways (the Surprise).

But all of them relate to the core activity familiar from

fairy tales and myths, films and sports, and of course,

everyday life – the quest for a treasure, and the

pleasure that will bring. The characters in this

section are the archtypes one finds imbued

with the qualities of the previous two

sections. They embody essentic forms

and the forms of exploration.

Indeed, these are the categories

we use to make sense of social situations.

Everyone and everything has to fit in one box or another

– Hero, Dreamer, Helper, Treasure, Obstacle –

and there are others, as readers of Fairy Tales will know

– the Villain, the Trickster/Deceiver, the Magic Amulet, the Exotic Realm, the Portal –

and even the Irrelevance.

Each generates the right emotion to help us succeed in life.

We look up to the Hero for support and Help.

We feel parental towards the Dreamer, we make oooh and aaah sounds and want to help.

We hate the Villain. We are bored by the Irrelevance. Frustrated by the Obstacle. And we long for the Treasure.

In many cases, who is in what role is instantly recognisable.

But how? Biological release mechanisms are triggered by simple visual clues –

the downward tilted head and upturned eyes of the little girl offering her doll to the doctor,

denoting submission and the cue she needs help. The joy of the outstretched arms

of the returning soldier’s mum, and the huge smiles on the faces

of his siblings. The longing gaze into space of the dreamer.

Or we may of course be primed for it by the title,

as in the case of ‘Grandpa’s Gift’.

Shapes and juxtapositions give

some of the important clues we need to identify who and what

is fulfilling which role in any scene - hero, rival/enemy, helper/ally, herald, treasure, magic amulet, etc.

But irrespective of the clue, the people (and creatures – note the dog in

Rockwell’s ‘Breaking Home Ties’ – and even rocks!)

fall quickly into slots within a hardwired framework

(another of Marvin Minsky’s ‘agents’, perhaps),

and the relevant emotions pop out to influence our behaviour.

This is the prime model we have of the world,

and which we use to survive and achieve our ends, whether our treasure is water,

food, a mate, gold and jewels, or launching a satellite into orbit.

Sorting out which character is playing which role is extremely vital,

and arouses a huge amount of attention. And the harder

it is to sort out (up to a point), the more fascinating

- the easier it is to achieve, the more boring.

This is the foundation

not only for how we get by in the world,

but also of all mythology, art, literature, sport, and every cultural form,

from a tabloid newspaper article 'exposing' a 'hero' as 'villain',

to a boxing match that is over in one round;

from the cliffhanging ending of a soap episode to a striptease;

from Bradford's famous plate featuring the delivery of Early Morning Milk,

to a jazz musician apparently agonising over the return to the tonic,

while actually finding a thousand ways to delay it.

The fundamental mechanism people use to make sense

of the world is what we will call the Quest for Treasure. The main archetypes

are the Treasure itself, the Heroes aspiring and striving for it, Helpers who help the heroes,

the magic objects and places which assist the hero in the Quest,

the evil characters who oppose them, and the magic objects and places

which conspire to assist the villain. We are hypothesising

that these were hardwired into the brain long

before there were humans, because they have huge survival value.

And in the Quest Hypothesis I am saying that this is still the actual equipment

we use to make sense of the world, and that it is one of the three main foundations of all art forms.

...

That's it... what do you think?

(p164, The Art of Looking Sideways, Alan Fletcher, Phaidon, 2001)

The End?