What Is Art and Why Is It Important?
Art is something that seems relatively simple on the surface, yet its study requires expert visual analysis, written communication and critical thinking skills. According to the largest online encyclopedia, Britannica, the term “art” refers to a wide range of visual products such as painting, sculpture, architecture and decorative arts. Art history is the historical study of these products and their historical developments.Unlike other disciplines such as literature, biology or history, art is both a creative and visual form of expression, which makes it more complex to understand and analyze. Art is often seen as a way to connect with the human experience, and the ideas that artists convey through their work can be powerful and moving. Art is also a way to preserve and honor cultural traditions, and it can serve as an outlet for social or political activism.Art can be used to express the human imagination, as well as the desire for balance and harmony in a world that is often chaotic and unpredictable. The experience of art can be a way to feel connected to the universe and to other people, as it is a universal language that transcends culture and time.Many classic definitions of art take a simple approach by defining an artwork by its possession of one type of property: representational properties, expressive properties and formal properties. However, these classic definitions have several problems. First, they are overly expansive. The number of different artistic mediums is huge, and each of these has its own characteristics and properties. Second, they fail to account for the fact that some of these properties are subjective and depend on the viewer’s interpretation of the work.A more useful approach to defining art may be to look at it in terms of its function. Almost all works of art are created to have some sort of symbolic meaning. This can be anything from a religious connection to the creator’s emotions or a reference to a particular event. Some pieces of art have a ritualistic or ceremonial purpose, and others are meant to represent an aspect of reality such as the natural world or human relationships. For example, a painter might create a scene of a mountain landscape to reflect the joy that she feels for her family. A sculptor might create an abstract figure to represent the freedom that he feels in his life. This concept of truth is a powerful and important one for art to capture.