What Is Art

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      My classmate Alan gave us a great presentation in class today on what is considered to be a piece of art? He gave us an example of a pianist playing gibberish notes of cacophony at a concert asking us whether one could classify this as art. Well dear reader, this got me thinking. Having written pages and pages of random thoughts in this blog, what does qualify as a piece of art per se?

Look up modern art in YouTube and you shall find videos such as this.

 https://youtube.com/shorts/WLTVfvMszjc?si=5ubfmLozZkymBK36

     And the comments are exactly what you expect, everyone yelling at each other and no one listening anyone at all. Now let’s look at it this way. I take a bucket of paint throw it on a man, and then force the man into a corner of a museum. Now does it qualify as art? If it does, then doesn’t everything qualify as art? If it doesn’t then you sir are not smart enough to deduce the hidden depths of my gravity generating genius. It’s the classic case of the Emperor’s new clothes.

 

     Now to understand art let’s try to understand what is not art? Tolstoy wrote a whole book ranting about the limits of art, even frequently contradicting his own thoughts, but I could dig an idea that he was a hardliner against commercialization of art. It makes sense but if a piece of art is liked by everyone does it not become commercial automatically? In that case can we completely invalidate Shakespeare for making his share of money?

 

     I saw this video recently of The Pablo Picasso drawing a face, just a face. Therefore, I decided to watch the whole video expecting a miraculous piece of art at the end. Well, it was miraculous, perhaps for a five-year-old who just started to hold a pencil.                                                                

                                                 

      Look at it! I do not comprehend anything great about this picture except the person drawing it. Which neatly brings along to our next argument.

DOES THE AUTHOR MATTER?

So, once you have attained the crest  of popularity, does art becomes merely a joke which you can easily nick some money from? Does that mean you are now immune from all forms of criticism and expectations? If that were in the case of sports, we would win the cricket cup every single time if Sachin or Dhoni just showed up in the field for five minutes.

 

     For the second part of my thoughts let’s go to something most of us have already watched at some point in their life, Avatar! Yes, Avatar. Now if you ask someone what was the movie all about or at least name a character, you would probably would not get an answer. The film was more of a spectacle of beautiful colors, blue people, bad humans and that’s about it. Considering it from a storytelling perspective it miserably fails, however greatly successful by its novelty value.

DOES THE CONTENT MATTER?

I saw the 1941 film Citizen Kane couple of years ago. It was a considered a cult classic film among the greater geeks among the movie watchers. How ever after two hours of what felt like decades, it would leave you with a feeling, why? What great story does it tell and why does it need two hours for it? If you found the film interesting, do prove me wrong.

     Coming back to the initial argument, what is wrong with a commercial work of art? What can be so demeaning about catering to the needs of the fans?

DOES THE AUDIENCE MATTER?

     Great writers like Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, and even cartoonists like Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes) were under great pressure by their beloved fans to keep producing their works. If we observe the trends of long running loyal fandoms of Star Wars and Marvel comics, there has been a great disappointment among the audience due to new content trying to cater to a more general audience.

      


    Finally looking at the art itself. What is art? Is it merely a part of the great storytelling tradition? Or is it jus blatant entertainment? Or is it something more than what humans could express with words or actions?

Let me know your thoughts!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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