How Necessary is Art?

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Hypedupturtle
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How Necessary is Art?

Post by Hypedupturtle »

"How Necessary is Expressionism (Art) to/in universal society and why?"

This is something I've been considering lately, for I feel a lot of social/political change has come about due to art and expressionism is/has been of great value throughout history, yet has also caused great struggle/suffering.

I have very little to add besides my own personal opinion, so without pre-amble or waffle - happy debating :)
Existence
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Re: How Necessary is Art?

Post by Existence »

Albert Camus quote:

Of all the schools of patience and lucidity, creation is the most effective. It is also the staggering evidence of man's sole dignity:
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Tex texas
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Re: How Necessary is Art?

Post by Tex texas »

I think Hegel has a good way of thinking about this sort of question. He would say something like this:

Art is necessary because it exists; its necessity lies in its existence. How does it exist? Sure it exists as appearance, and appearances can be deceitful (some people even argue that deceit is the way art operates). But the truth, if it is the truth, has to also appear and can't just lie underneath appearances, and this explains why the necessity of artworks as mere appearance can still be questioned not just in terms of their material being, but according to what lies at their essence. Painting, sculpture, performance, poetry--these exist as sensuous embodiments of those intangible concepts, feelings, desires that we carry around with us. Yet art is not merely a means of expressing in material form our immaterial aspects. It is both a means and end in itself.

Hegel says: "The fact that art in general can serve other ends and be in that case a mere passing amusement is something which it shares equally with thought. For, on the one hand, science may indeed be used as an intellectual servant for finite ends and accidental means, and it then acquires its character not from itself but from other objects and circumstances. Yet, on the other hand, it also cuts itself free from this servitude in order to raise itself, in free independence, to the truth in which it fulfills itself independently and conformably with its own ends alone."

So, in another sense, determinate necessity in art is antithetical to art's vocation. Since freedom is at the essence of art, anything external to that concept--any sort of compulsion from outside the domain of the work--would disfigure it, or make it into something else. If it were enforced, say, by some psychological necessity the way the bee is forced to construct a honeycomb, then art would not be what it is.

But your question seems directed at art in the contemporary global context. Hegel, as well as more recent thinkers (e.g. Adorno and Rancière), thinks that there is nothing that guarantees the persistence of art. His reasons for believing this are not really viable anymore (it had to do with his fundamental belief that the whole of the sensuous world and all the things in it could be exhausted by conceptual thinking), but the controversial thesis of the 'end of art' remains.
Dreager
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Re: How Necessary is Art?

Post by Dreager »

Art is necessary as long as we declare it to be. It is not necessary in the same sense as food, water and air, but it is necessary to some degree because it exists, with a conscious will for it's continued existence. How necessary is it then? As a musician I constantly consider whether I would be 'happier' without my art, and I do seriously consider it. But mainly I think it's because I overdose on it. For an artist, art might be something like an inverse chocolate. It is a want not satisfied by consumption, but rather production. For the art consumer I suppose it is just like chocolate. How necessary is chocolate?
JSunya
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Re: How Necessary is Art?

Post by JSunya »

Art is a principal way we tolerate reality (that is to say our versions of reality).
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Douglaspocock
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Re: How Necessary is Art?

Post by Douglaspocock »

Why wouldn't it be necessary? It seems to be that art, just as anything else, is just one aspect of existence. In fact, art can come in infinite forms. Even the way that we write our arguments is a form of art.

Art is not only necessary, but impossible to be without. :)

"How necessary is art?" I would say that it is as necessary as existence itself.
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Prismatic
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Re: How Necessary is Art?

Post by Prismatic »

Hypedupturtle wrote:"How Necessary is Expressionism (Art) to/in universal society and why?"
Whether art and expressionism are identical is my first quibble, but to the banner question, my answer would be that art is not necessary.

That is precisely what is wonderful about it. Art is what is extra, superfluous, unneeded, impractical, and useless. It's well beyond the everyday necessities of life and can therefore be taken as an index of civilization. Only when a civilization has met basic needs can it devote remaining energy and imagination to the arts.
Everywhere I have sought peace and never found it except in a corner with a book. —Thomas à Kempis
JSunya
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Re: How Necessary is Art?

Post by JSunya »

Expressionism is only one form that art takes, but I would claim that art is not "what is...superfluous" because I consider mere survival to be far from an adequate criterion for a worthwhile life. The unappreciated life is not worth examining--and art is the principal way to achieve and maintain that appreciation.

-- Updated May 30th, 2012, 11:09 pm to add the following --

Expressionism is only one form that art takes, but I would claim that art is not "what is...superfluous" because I consider mere survival to be far from an adequate criterion for a worthwhile life. The unappreciated life is not worth examining--and art is the principal way to achieve and maintain that appreciation.
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Prismatic
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Re: How Necessary is Art?

Post by Prismatic »

[quote="JSunya"] I consider mere survival to be far from an adequate criterion for a worthwhile life. The unappreciated life is not worth examining--and art is the principal way to achieve and maintain that appreciation.

Where did I say or imply that mere survival is a worthwhile life? Survival is, however life. If you asked someone 21 years old if they would trade a fatal diagnosis of cancer for a longer life without art, what do you think most would choose?
Everywhere I have sought peace and never found it except in a corner with a book. —Thomas à Kempis
JSunya
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Re: How Necessary is Art?

Post by JSunya »

Sorry, that's how I read your specification that art ia "well beyond the everyday necessities of life". I would make the same choice as your cancer victum given such an extreme circumstance. But I "calculate" the more or less 10 to 15 years I have left of life mainly in terms of how many paintings and violin works I can perform.

-- Updated May 31st, 2012, 1:24 am to add the following --

Sorry, that's how I read your specification that art ia "well beyond the everyday necessities of life". I would make the same choice as your cancer victum given such an extreme circumstance. But I "calculate" the more or less 10 to 15 years I have left of life mainly in terms of how many paintings and violin works I can perform.
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Prismatic
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Re: How Necessary is Art?

Post by Prismatic »

JSunya wrote:Sorry, that's how I read your specification that art ia "well beyond the everyday necessities of life". I would make the same choice as your cancer victum given such an extreme circumstance. But I "calculate" the more or less 10 to 15 years I have left of life mainly in terms of how many paintings and violin works I can perform.
I'm of exactly the same frame of mind. I just think of art as a gift—icing on the cake of life.
Everywhere I have sought peace and never found it except in a corner with a book. —Thomas à Kempis
JSunya
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Re: How Necessary is Art?

Post by JSunya »

I see it has the substance of the successful life.
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Prismatic
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Re: How Necessary is Art?

Post by Prismatic »

JSunya wrote:I see it has the substance of the successful life.
I cannot accept that without some considerable qualification since it could easily lead to devaluation of the lives of those who lack access to art. Albert Schweitzer was a world renowned organist with a deep knowledge of the origins of Bach's inspiration and a theologian whose book The Quest of the Historical Jesus had a major influence, yet he gave it all up to become a medical missionary. There were no opportunities for him to play the kind of music on the kind of instrument he was used to in Lambaréné and the quality of life there was poor, but he must have considered his work and his life there successful to have continued so many years.
Everywhere I have sought peace and never found it except in a corner with a book. —Thomas à Kempis
Belinda
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Re: How Necessary is Art?

Post by Belinda »

Schweitzer: medicine is art too.
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Ecurb
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Re: How Necessary is Art?

Post by Ecurb »

Prismatic wrote:
JSunya wrote:I see it has the substance of the successful life.
I cannot accept that without some considerable qualification since it could easily lead to devaluation of the lives of those who lack access to art. Albert Schweitzer was a world renowned organist with a deep knowledge of the origins of Bach's inspiration and a theologian whose book The Quest of the Historical Jesus had a major influence, yet he gave it all up to become a medical missionary. There were no opportunities for him to play the kind of music on the kind of instrument he was used to in Lambaréné and the quality of life there was poor, but he must have considered his work and his life there successful to have continued so many years.
Yet people talk all the time about “the art of medicine” or the “art of war”. Used in this way, “art” means the application of training, theories and rules to any human endeavor". We talk, for example, of the “art of cooking”. In addition, the distinction between “art” in the sense of “esthetically pleasing arrangement of words, sounds, colors, shapes, etc.” and “art” in the sense I mentioned earlier is not clear. Are pure mathematics or logic an “art” in this second sense? If so, aren’t they “necessary” to modern life?

Finally, humans think both logically and analogically. Analogical reasoning may very well be vital to human existence and survival (emulating role models, for example). Art as analogy could very well be “necessary” to human survival.
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