Obviously much too broad of a topic for a blog post, but it's fun to briefly consider anyway. As an art history prof of mine once said: "It's art if you call it art." That's a pretty big umbrella and yet who doesn't sometimes feel that the "art world" has been hijacked by critics and collectors who tend towards the conceptual and provocative to the exclusion of the emotional and evocative. Isn't there room enough for both under the moniker: Art?
One could make the argument that it is those latter qualities which inspired the first artists to express themselves in ways that may have been considered impractical, at least with respect to survival. Somehow, though, these efforts struck a chord with others and we were off to the races.
Fast forward 80 thousand generations and we find the "art world" is now seemingly divorced from everyday life. So skewed has this perspective become that today if you were to ask your fellow shoppers in Stop & Shop about art they are likely to say: "I don't understand art." Seems a shame that the qualities of emotion and beauty have been relegated to pop songs and, dare I say it, Thomas Kinkade paintings. Whatever one thinks of Kinkade, I know many people who find his work speaks to them, though they may not be able to articulate why.
Here for your consideration are some additional thoughts on the subject:
"...there is almost always a gap in time — however infinitesimal it may seem — between seeing and comprehending. That moment just before we file a perception away into a conventional category, when our senses and minds are fully alert to what lies before us — that is the sweet spot of art."
Ken Johnson, NEW YORK TIMES on photography
"A couple weeks ago I watched a tenor in a gondolier's outfit stride out on a stage and sing to an immense outdoor crowd "O Sole Mio" and "Torna a Sorrento" and "Finiculi-Finicula," three old cheeseballs that no serious singer does nowadays, and when he hit the big money note at the end of "O Sole Mio," that crowd jumped up as if bitten by badgers and yelled and whooped and whistled. I loved that. Serious artists seek to create challenging work that leaves the audience stunned, thoughtful, even angry, but what we the audience want is the pure joy of a man aiming at a very high note and hitting it squarely and us jumping up and yelling. A simple reflex, same as when the opposition hits into a double play in the ninth inning with one out and the winning run on third."
Garrison Kiellor
North Gully