Question:
What is art to you ?
Self expression ?
Is it the aesthetic experience of creating the art ?
Is it significant to culture to create a society ?
Or is it simply mundane ?
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
By "Art" I assume you include writing, sculpture, architecture, Graffiti, film, dance and so on. What is it? All of it's subjective. I might be intrigued and gaze at the intricacies of a cathedral or a painting by Turner, or be bewitched by a poem by Tennyson. You, or another, might not like any of these three examples. I might think a dress is beautiful (that also can be "Art.") An artist can be comissioned to do a painting or sculpture, and even though it is commissioned, he/she can give themselves enough leeway to put theirselves into it - I mean their soul. Sometimes you see a painting that's technically good, that maybe someone's copied off a postcard. To me, that's like painting by numbers. I knew a painter like that, once, and I liked only one - the one he painted while he was in love with me. It had passion and soul. When I see ballet dancers, or skaters, they are so graceful, the beauty of it makes me want to cry. So many artists work so hard with a fixed goal in their minds and hearts. Michaelangelo spent 9 years painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Gymnasts on the parallel bars don't heed their bleeding hands - it's a celebration of what human beings can do to produce beauty.
Why, though, paint a tree, when you can see it every day from your window? Because you love that tree so much, you want to somehow possess it, or translate its beauty onto a canvas, making it an impression or representation of the real thing?And as you paint it, you get to know it, and understand it - you are both in harmony.
Some art, like architecture is beautiful and functional.
Others, like a wild Flamenco dance are an expression of the vibrant love of life.
Poets can pack so much power and imagery into just a few lines, and they, as well as many writers and painters inspire us. Maybe it's because we want to be more than just working, slogging humans, commuting to a boring job. Maybe there's something mystical, a height we want to aspire to that creates art. Anything that teaches or gives a person a different perspective on life, or highlights natural beauty in any way is not just expressing a wish for beauty, and often, an artist doesn't care if he/she is appreciated by others or not.
Other artists, like writers, musicians, need the richness and beauty of their art to flower with an audience. A good book needs a good reader, for it's a two way street, and for the musician and his audience, it becomes a shared experience.
It's all about imbibing the beauty of the environment, of its feelings - because sometimes a book, a poem, a painting is sad, even disturbing, but it still gives us a unique perpective.
Writing - for the writer is a means of escape, also. A good writer will be so engrossed in the world and characters he's creating, that the rest of the world is shut out, and, after a few hours, he is emotionally exhausted.
What is not art? Careless paintings mass produced that people buy to go with their wallpaper! Formula Romance writing.....
We are all capable of creating art - whether it's a lovely meal, a poetic flower arrangement, a lovely harmonious - or disharmonious garden.
Cavemen presumably used drawings to communicate and to decorate - men on whalers for many months on end whiled away the time by carving lovely things on scrimshaw. It's in human nature to express our feelings about life - ours and other people's through art. Not by merely imitating, like a snapshot, but by important form, content, colour, so that we inject our feelings into what we see or imagine, so that we can rise above the mundane and somehow, in some little way, be part of all life, beautiful, sad, troubling, that Someone Else has created, but in His way. Artists don't have to follow His way, nor do they have to believe, but they have to create something which makes sense, their own sense, out of our world. To see something maybe another wouldn't - to feel more spiritual, to be in harmony with an often disharmonious world.
The pen really is mightier than the sword.