What is the purpose, if any, of art?

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meltzerboy

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By art, I am including all the arts: painting, sculpture, architecture, drawing, music, dance, literature, poetry, photography, theater, film, and so on. There are several theories: art as a window to the soul, as a means of achieving truth, as a manner of expression and communication of, or identification with, thoughts and emotions, as a distillation of life, as a comment on or predictor of lifestyle trends, as a representation of beauty, purity, or spirituality, as an educational tool, as a means of distraction from life, or for sheer entertainment. Maybe the arts have multiple purposes, or maybe they have no purpose at all.

What do you think?
 
In a sense of course a work of art has whatever purpose the artist had in making it. That could be any of the things you listed (except no purpose at all, unless you count “art” made accidentally or perhaps by animals, and even then there is a purpose in someone subsequently calling it art), or more likely a combination of several of them.

Personally I consider representational art that is made to be beautiful an especially noble kind of art. Ugliness in art can have a place in expressing truth, but too often I think it just expresses the morbidly disordered mind of the artist. Non-representational art like abstract paintings are, it seems to me, more akin to architectural decoration than to representative art. They can be good or bad but they just aren’t the same thing as art in which a subject is lovingly depicted.
 
A favorite quote of mine is from Johann Sebastian Bach, “The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.”

As a basic and generic statement, I think that could apply to most if not all of the arts.

It seems Paul agrees to some extent: 1 Corinthians 10.31, “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”
 
It’s very intriguing to read in Exodus how that God was so specific in giving the details of every part of the tabernacle and its utensils. And that He had specially prepared certain people for its construction. He was very concerned with the artistic form and expression of that place.
Exodus 31, “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 'See, I have called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah: and I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship,
To devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship.
And I, behold, I have given with him Aholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan: and in the hearts of all that are wise hearted I have put wisdom, that they may make all that I have commanded thee.”
 
meltzerboy said:
By art, I am including all the arts: painting, sculpture, architecture, drawing, music, dance, literature, poetry, photography, theater, film, and so on. There are several theories: art as a window to the soul, as a means of achieving truth, as a manner of expression and communication of, or identification with, thoughts and emotions, as a distillation of life, as a comment on or predictor of lifestyle trends, as a representation of beauty, purity, or spirituality, as an educational tool, as a means of distraction from life, or for sheer entertainment. Maybe the arts have multiple purposes, or maybe they have no purpose at all.

What do you think?
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I think the purpose of art is simply to communicate.
 
meltzerboy said:
By art, I am including all the arts: painting, sculpture, architecture, drawing, music, dance, literature, poetry, photography, theater, film, and so on. There are several theories: art as a window to the soul, as a means of achieving truth, as a manner of expression and communication of, or identification with, thoughts and emotions, as a distillation of life, as a comment on or predictor of lifestyle trends, as a representation of beauty, purity, or spirituality, as an educational tool, as a means of distraction from life, or for sheer entertainment. Maybe the arts have multiple purposes, or maybe they have no purpose at all.

What do you think?
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I am a painter. I could not live without art in my home. Music, film, and painting are my favourite art forms.

Paintings provide spaces for meditation. I look at a landscape painting and imagine myself in the scene, hearing the quiet, and then I make a little random story about myself being in the scene. It awakens my imagination.

When I look at abstract paintings or still life, or other styles of painting, they awaken other areas of my imagination.

Who in this era does not have music playing, at least in the car, or while working? Music is essential, as well. Music that has no particular subject forms the neural pathways that make science and mathematics possible. Music that has subject matter awakens the imagination in the same way that painting does.

When I’m making a painting, my thoughts are about the techniques involved - how to get this line to look as if it’s receding into the distance; how to get this colour to sit properly on the surface so as to resemble what I want it to resemble.

With film, you get into myth-making and story-telling - so much symbolism! These symbols and myths appear in painting and music, as well, but even more so in film. Also, film has music and painting in it, as well - it’s kind of a summary art form that encompasses everything. 🙂
 
Art can be divided in to four main categories in the visual arts:
  1. Representational art. This means paintings, sculptures and designs in any medium that show real objects. There is some degree of interpretation regarding the style, i.e., very realistic, cartoony, emulating a period like 18th Century art, stylistic where it becomes more like a design than a detailed rendering but it is still recognizable as a person, bird, etc.
  2. Non-representational art. This can exist in all mediums as random shapes, designs or marks that do not depict anything readily identifiable. Supposedly, such art is made to suit the artist but it has far less communication value to the average person. Since rules exist that define how colors and shapes can create a particular reaction in the viewer, this cannot ignore the fact that such work is outside the realm of any certain interpretation.
  3. Industrial design, also called product design. This is based on the idea that items we may buy and use can be attractive as well as useful. This involves complete knowledge of color theory, shape and function, perspective drawing and rendering accurate surface textures. There is no mistaking what the design is even though it may combine shapes in new ways as compared to older designs of similar products.
  4. Architectural design and interior design. These are living or working spaces, from corporate buildings to factories, businesses and homes. While encompassing certain aspects of industrial design, it must also include knowledge of a wide array of materials - their shape, color and texture - that will help create a functional and aesthetic image that will create a large physical artifact that a corporation, for example, will use to establish an identity of itself to the public. Ideally, a unique identity. The same can be said of businesses, which run the gamut from upscale, trendy, middle-class and more simple. The architect must know about materials that are applicable, functional and aesthetically pleasing, and that fit the client’s budget.
In the non-visual arts, like music. There are also rules about creating mood with sound that include tempo, beat and rhythm, to name a few. Vocals add another dimension. Of course, music videos can be made but that falls into the theater category and dance.

Live performing arts like plays, dance and elaborate theater involve artistic and non-artistic skills. Dance can run from classical to “interpretive,” which does not allow the viewer to gain a definite sense of the meaning of what he just saw. A play is a limited production that involves costumes, props and simple sets. Theater is a large-scale version of a play with far more elaborate and extensive props and scene/background changes. All types of artists are involved to make sure the clothing represents a period or is simply appealing, to painters to create backgrounds which are then rendering in wood and other appropriate materials. Actors do not come in one size or shape, so a casting person must be involved. If it is a musical, then a musician or even an orchestra must create a score. Of course a writer, or group of writers must produce a script. Lighting to create mood is also a key part of the process, along with those who arrange the lighting and lay the cables and man the controls.

Film involves theater but taken to a much more elaborate level and may include experts in rendering things that aren’t there. Such CGI is necessary for many films, especially in the super-hero and sci-fi genres. These people are definitely artists. The problematic aspect of too many films is that they involve graphic blood and gore, sex scenes that are bit more graphic but not explicit, although nudity and partial nudity may be elements, to the use of profanity and dismemberment, decapitation and cold-blooded killing done, once again, graphically. Cohabitation and casual divorce and abortion may all be handled as “hey, that’s just the way it is.” Movies have an impact on viewers which may vary but the images and dialogue do not mean nothing.
 
I think the purpose of art varies from artist to artist.

I’m a fine artist; my primary discipline is sculpture, though I also paint, draw and do a number of crafts. Just speaking for myself, I have a innate drive to depict beauty. If I try to reflect on why I need to do that, it has something to do with reminding people to stop, and notice things, and look at the beauty of the earth—not in worship of the created order, but because beauty says something about the Creator.

Years ago I was really wrestling with questions of theodicy; the goodness of God and the reality of sometimes horrific and traumatic suffering of innocents. I’d read a ton of Christian (Protestant and Catholic) and some Jewish and Buddhist books and essays on the problem of pain, and still struggled with questions. I remember talking with my pastor about it at length, and he told me a question he asked himself. The question was about gathering evidence, more or less: if he was going to pass judgment on God, or on God’s non-existence, by noting instances of inexplicable suffering, he also had to note the inexplicable nature of beauty. I’m doing a poor job of trying to relate what he said to me. It was sort of like he stopped me in my tracks of my complaint about God’s goodness and reminded me that if I was going to accuse God of not being good by arguing over the negative evidence, I also had to account for the existence to beauty. I couldn’t. I couldn’t account for beauty apart from God being beautiful Himself. To borrow from Augustine, “I am not He, but He made me.”

I suspect I’m not making much sense here, but, anyway, I sculpt, or paint, or whatever, as a reminder of the existence, and mysterious nature, of beauty, even amidst sordidness or suffering. Sometimes it’s mostly a reminder to myself.

In a very real way art is my most comfortable form of communication, too. I usually think in pictures, not words, so to communicate verbally I feel like I’m taking some thought which I experience as vivid and often complex but orderly, and scrunching it down into some impoverishing words. With art I don’t need to take that frustrating, draining, scrunching step–it’s more of a direct communication.
 
In the final analysis, the purpose of art is to give glory to God. But like all other things, that purpose can be perverted.
 
As a musician and a photography, to chase beauty. That is it for me, reflect the beauty of created things, and even things unseen, through my medium. Now my arts are un-perverted, thankfully. I am an instrumentalist and a nature photography, I would be hard pressed to pervert those things! But I can see how a perverted artist could chase the destructive rather than the creative. But as in all things, a perversion is more often than not a misguided attempt to reach forward to God. I think that it is rare that a person deliberately glorifies the diabolical.

SO! In your normal art, chasing beauty, a gift form God to hold His creation in reverence and awe.

**O all you who walk by on the road, pay attention and see:
if there be any sorrow like my sorrow.

Pay attention, all people, and look at my sorrow:
if there be any sorrow like my sorrow.**
 
Lerchinator said:
As a musician and a photography, to chase beauty. That is it for me, reflect the beauty of created things, and even things unseen, through my medium. Now my arts are un-perverted, thankfully. I am an instrumentalist and a nature photography, I would be hard pressed to pervert those things! But I can see how a perverted artist could chase the destructive rather than the creative. But as in all things, a perversion is more often than not a misguided attempt to reach forward to God. I think that it is rare that a person deliberately glorifies the diabolical.

SO! In your normal art, chasing beauty, a gift form God to hold His creation in reverence and awe.

**O all you who walk by on the road, pay attention and see:
if there be any sorrow like my sorrow.

Pay attention, all people, and look at my sorrow:
if there be any sorrow like my sorrow.**
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Well said–that goes for me, too. I see art as an act of chasing. Many people know Francis Thompson’s great poem “The Hound of Heaven”, describing God chasing us, but sometimes I picture us chasing after the hints of Himself God drops, “The Cat of Heaven”: God as my plume tailed cat, Aramis, leading me on, disappearing around corners with the tip of his tail slowly, beguilingly, slipping and slinking out of view while I catch up. ( Of course Aramis’ goal is just to lead me towards his food bowl most of the time.)
 
Thank you all for your very interesting and informative comments! Creativity and imagination are certainly important aspects of art. And I would also add that art can have a healing effect on both the artist and the audience. It can transform and transcend reality and transport us to a spiritual dimension and experience. Finally, I believe the purpose of art consists not only of what the artist intends but also how the observer interprets and reacts to it.
 
I look at the complexity of the maths behind western music and am amazed. I see the maths and its beauty behind the architecture of the Cathedrals and I am in awe. I feel the emotion of great paintings and the skill in their manufacture and I worship my God that can skill His creations to such glory. Ad maiorem Dei gloriam should be the basis of all our actions especially those adding beauty to the world.
 
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth (Exodus 20.4)
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The purpose of art is to make one dumb. Plato was against art [edited by moderator] or democracy. Newton didn’t play sports or a musical instrument, gamble at whist or gambol on a horse. He dismissed poetry as “a kind of ingenious nonsense”, and the one time he attended an opera he fled at the third act.
Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day? (Deuteronomy 4.5-8)
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Ryuji_Yamazaki said:
The purpose of art is to make one dumb. Plato was against art [edited by moderator] or democracy. Newton didn’t play sports or a musical instrument, gamble at whist or gambol on a horse. He dismissed poetry as “a kind of ingenious nonsense”, and the one time he attended an opera he fled at the third act.
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Nothing more needs to be said.
 
Ryuji_Yamazaki said:
The purpose of art is to make one dumb. Plato was against art [edited by moderator] or democracy. Newton didn’t play sports or a musical instrument, gamble at whist or gambol on a horse. He dismissed poetry as “a kind of ingenious nonsense”, and the one time he attended an opera he fled at the third act.
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Darn it. I, for one, am disappointed. Here all these years I’ve been picturing Newton gamboling about on horseback while reciting Milton’s sonnets and playing a lute.
 
Ryuji_Yamazaki said:
The purpose of art is to make one dumb. Plato was against art [edited by moderator] or democracy. Newton didn’t play sports or a musical instrument, gamble at whist or gambol on a horse. He dismissed poetry as “a kind of ingenious nonsense”, and the one time he attended an opera he fled at the third act.
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When Peter the Great, the Tsar of Russia, visited England Newton and Peter the Great took turns pushing each other through a hedge in a wheelbarrow.
But back to art.
You could say that art is what drives humanity. As the song said, no-one wants to live in a world without love, but whether they admit it or not neither do they want to live in a world without art.
If someone objects to the idea you could ask them why they work. They might say to earn money. And you say, what do you want money for. They say for a nice car, a nice house, a nice wife, etc.
But they like a car because it looks good. And a car looks good because it was designed by an artist and sculpted by sculptor to look good.
The house they would like to buy if they had the money was designed by another artist, an architect with means, who could afford to put form over cost.
Even the wife he likes does not look like a bag-lady. She has the latest in designer [artist] clothes, makeup, jewelry, etc.
For vacation they want to go somewhere that looks like a “picture postcard”.
For their house, garden, and person these people want the best art that money can buy.
Art, as one form or manifestation of beauty and creativity, is a large part of what drives humanity. The soulish or the spiritual forms of beauty and creativity and the source of that is another large part of that which drives humanity.
 
Art is an expression of our creative nature. Whereas with science we discover, with art we create. This is why the creative and interpretive arts are so much more universal than science and philosophy. They speak to the heart rather than to the head, though you need to have considerable intelligence as well to be truly creative.

Those who are artistically creative, and those who appreciate their work, are engaged in an attempt to understand themselves and their own destiny. Thus poetry and music and painting are therapeutic. Art is a godlike activity because it is creative. This is why there is no such thing as atheistic art. Try to find a work of art that celebrate the belief in no god, whereas you will find millions of art works that celebrate God.

I have for a long time believed that art is the gateway to God and the best proof that God exists.
 
Phenomenological investigation reveals the more artistic the dumber is man.
It causes one to be in a state that has little to do with reality: that one is therefore a liar. Lies make dumb. To lie is to sin against the Spirit for the Spirit is truth. Art causes the second death which consists in falling asleep in the nightmare of this age only to dream that nightmare again. Artistic indeed.

In short, art is effeminate.
 
Ryuji_Yamazaki said:
Phenomenological investigation reveals the more artistic the dumber is man.
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You must be right. Da Vinci is a sad example of this truth. Gosh, if he hadn’t been hampered by being artistic I bet he could have single-handedly invented the internet.
 
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