The Necessity of the Existence of Art in the Life of a Human Being - Essay Example

03 March Meaningfulness of works of art according to culture, time and audience It goes without sayingthat art has been playing a significant role in people life since ancient times. It is impossible to imagine the history of any age without relying on art of its time, because the necessity of existence of art in the life of a human being is enormous. The society, as every personality, may be successful or not, it depends not only on economic conditions, but also on the level of morality, relationships and culture. Actually, the culture in the widest meaning of this word is a process in which people look for sense of their existence and change themselves and the word. I have examined several resources concluding very useful information about art the authors of which take up the main questions such as whether art is determined by the culture, its historical aspect and audience interpretation of works of art. I have observed some peculiarities of development of art while studying the materials about the museums of art, their remarkable uniformity and the origin of them. “The museum is an organizer of culture and, like all organizations, it has its quirks. Nationalism comes into play in the museums organization. However, it shows up in the subtle ways the museum celebrates national identity. Museums give a sense of historical continuity with moments of rupture. Such moments of rupture between periods are almost always defined as a reaction against what has preceded them.” (Diepeveen, Van Laar 10). It is important to mark out the problem of originality: “those who first do something are given pride of place. The emphasis on originality results in the inclusion of some kinds of works and the exclusion of others. Ideas of originality and progress devalue work that isn’t breaking new ground that is formally conservative.” (14). The history of art museums. The most complete picture of the art can be accessed in the museums which history is very informatively described in the work of Diepeveen and Van Laar: “The origins of the modern Western art museum date back to ancient Greece. In Greece the term “museion” meant a sacred place where under the inspirations of the Muses ceremonies and literary competitions took place. The great Museum of Alexandria, Egypt, was the earliest known use of the term as we recognize it today. The Museum of Alexandria created a comprehensive, encyclopedic collection of specimens and artifacts for classification, preservation and research. With the burning of the Museum of Alexandria, museums disappeared for a while from Western culture. The museum reemerged during the Renaissance with a revival of interest in ancient learning. Using objects brought back from the great voyages of exploration, the aristocracy and wealthy classes collected items in “cabinets of curiosity”. Such collections combined animal and plant materials, shells, fossils, human artifacts, and minerals, along with books, paintings and drawings. The intent was both to stimulate learning and to dazzle and amuse. Most of these “cabinets” were in fact palace rooms, where privileged people could see the precious objects. The next major shift in the museum was to a more egalitarian, pedagogical place. In the seventeenth century, some aristocratic and church collections were opened to the “public”. This egalitarianism was not particularly far-ranging though; the “public” was understood to include only students, the upper classes and artists. During the late eighteenth century, emphasis on education and a new idea of what constituted the fine arts brought about a separation of paintings and sculpture from other kinds of objects. It also resulted in the founding of museums that exist yet today. Following the French revolution, in 1792, the Louvre and its contents (the palace and the collection of the deposed king) were declared national property and opened to the public in 1793. The Louvre was “the most politically significant and influential” transformation of a royal collection to a public art museum”. (18-19). This has made it possible to use the museums as a tool for originating of national identity, and it is a more than successful attempt as museums have on display the most remarkable pieces of art and history of the nation to be pride of. Thus it is possible to reckon that by means of this fact the art influences on an individual which is part of a whole audience making it not only culturally, but also nationally conscious. What Art Is Meant To Be. Though art is claimed to be “indefinable, and it is a logical mistake to seek the essence of it” (Warburton 62), there are some important questions that lead to interesting answers. For example, whether art is a derivative of the culture or a culture is a derivative of art, whether art depends mostly on the artist’s personality and individuality are the most discussed ones which we will consider. It is generally accepted that different cultures have differences in art – for example, Islamic culture depends considerably on religion, cultures of some African countries are practically impossible without their local nature and environment, and western cultures are famous for their liberalism. This fact makes impact on the arts of the cultures: the Muslims are prohibited to paint living things as this is considered to be rivalry to Allah, the Africans whose life is passing in surrounding of trees and animals tend to create works of arts related to these objects, and western nations are free to use all their fantasy. The reasons of this are, first of all, the development of the society and the way o life of the mentioned nations. This leads us to answer to the question what is a derivative: when taking a look on the society it is obvious that everything, including the art and the culture, has developed in the process of the society development. At early stages, a man was primarily interested in skills and knowledge which could help to feed himself and his family, and only after achieving this it became possible to take up other things. Then, to bring luck in hunting, the first pictures on the rocks, the first amulets in shape of women appeared, and when it became interesting how the world originated and who created everything the first myths and beliefs were explanation of these questions. It is possible to say that the art emerged before culture if consider things made by the first men works of art, but it is also possible to suppose that culture already existed if we look at this concept as a definition of the human’s s spheres of activity, art being one of them (the culture of communication, production, labour and so on). It seems more realistic that these two things emerged simultaneously and ever since had been, and still remain, interdependent and interconnected, they supplement each other: for example, language developed in the process of evolution, on the opinion of some scientists, besides being part of culture, can determine cultural background of the nation, and in the same time it is an object of art as it comprises the nation’s creativity, its identity and its way of expression of thoughts, emotions, feelings. (Wentworth 109). Another thing to mention is the artist’s person and its influence on art. It is necessary to mention that it does not determine the art, but brings new features into it, and it is logically that the reasons for this should be considered. As it is known, let us take literature as an instance, there are different literature directions, such as naturalism, realism, surrealism and so on. They unite the works of the authors who follow all the features and peculiarities of this or that direction. For example, if we mention naturalism, such names as Jack London, Theodore Dreiser, and Emile Zola are recalled, and we never separate anyone of them as a follower of their own directions. Their personal influence on the works, however, is the thing that can easily be traced: London’s biography is a story of continuous battle for life, and the characters of his works use every opportunity to stay alive despite all the difficulties and hurdles they face; Dreiser knew mysteries of financial America of the early XX century and impact of money and finances on a human being, and no one could surpass his novels in this respect. In other words, it is possible to bring about something new into art based on personal experience, feelings, emotions, but these factors cannot determine the art, otherwise there would be as many arts as people on the planet. The Artist’s Intentions and The Audience’s Interpretation. “Raw material and finished product can be clearly distinguished. The raw material is transformed into something different. The carpenter takes the bits of wood as raw material and out of them makes the finished product, the table.” (Warburton 40). These words perfectly illustrate that we know how the raw material for the carpenter’s works looks like and how the results of his work are perceived by the others as the table serves for certain different , though not numerous, purposes. Another situation is with the works of art – we know raw material for them (words, paint, metal, sounds), but listening to the same song by a group of people influences on them in different ways: some are excited and have good memories of it, whereas others may be depressed or feel uncomfortable. Characters of literature works may be also interpreted differently: one says this character is positive, the other one says the opposite thing, both proving their points of view. This is one of the peculiarities of art: though its examples may look the same, they are interpreted by everyone from the position of personal perception. It is also difficult to say whether the audience realizes what the author intended to convey with his works. It is practically possible to determine the reason for creation of this or that poem, picture, sculpture, its style and other external features, but it is only the author who knows the real purpose of its existence. This does not mean that no one from the audience can understand this; this means that mostly people close to the author mentally, psychologically and having similar life experience are likely to catch the essence of his creation. The audience can extend, complete or even reconsider the author’s work, especially now in our age of unthinkable technological progress: there are films based on literature works, computer games developed under impressions of films, even books based on other books. This is a way of not just extension of the plot already known, this is a possibility to personally touch this work, to interpret it as you want, and to let other people know what your opinion is. Sometimes this even conveys the original author’s idea better than, say, a book – there is such a type of people called “visuals” by the psychologists for whom it is much better to see the information rather than to receive it through other channels, and if a film or just a video based on the book is made perfectly this person would not even probably need to read a book. There are also some limitations in perception of the author’s intentions while getting acquainted with his creations. These are, for example, poor knowledge of the author’s biography as it very often influences his or her way of creating works of art, of the history of the country he or she lived or lives in – cultural, social and even sometimes economic environment give a strong impact on what and how is done. There is also such an obstacle as time difference – for instance, the students cannot realize why Greek comedies are comedies indeed while studying them at their lessons without proper consideration of cultural development that time and nowadays. The author’s expression of the thoughts can also prevent from proper perception – “…we define expression as modes of organic or inorganic behavior displayed in the dynamic appearance of perceptual objects or events. The structural properties of these modes are not limited to what is grasped by the external senses; they are conspicuously active in the behavior of the human mind, and they are used metaphorically to characterize an infinity of non-sensory phenomena: low morale or the high cost of living, the spiraling of prices, the lucidity of argument, the compactness of resistance” (Arnheim 455). Conclusion To conclude this work it is necessary to admit that art is a universal value, it is very important for harmonic and even development of a sound society, and it is perceived personally by every human being in a special manner. The times and epochs changed, the values was shifted many times, but art remained the same indicator of the humanity and a human. Works Cited Arnheim, R. Art and Visual Perception. A Psychology of the Creative Eye. Berkeley,           Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1954/1974. Print. Diepeveen, L., Van Laar, T. Art with a Difference. Looking at Difficult and Unfamiliar           Art. Mountain View, California: Mayfield Publishing Company, 2009. Print. Warburton, N. The Art Question. London: Routledge, 2003. Print. Wentworth, N. The Phenomenology of Painting. Cambridge: Cambridge University           Press, 2004. Print. Read More