The meaning of art
I have a beef with art. More specifically, the term ‘art’. My entire life I never quite understood what art meant. For the longest time, I thought that was because I just didn’t ‘get’ it. Now I finally understand. It’s a hoax.
Here’s what it is: the term is meaningless. Utterly, absolutely devoid of meaning. ‘The quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.’ Says dictionary.com, the go-to website of spectacular vernacular. If this seems a reasonably accurate, specific description, well, it isn’t. The first part (beautiful, appealing) is outdated. Museums are often stacked with things that are deliberately ugly, kitschy or provocative. Besides, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What is pretty to one is ghastly to another. The second part is the killer. Who decides what the significance of a painting or statue is? Isn’t that completely up to the individual person as well? That precious Dragonball Z fanart on Emo-chan’s DeviantArt page might mean quite a bit to her and say a lot about her subculture to boot. Meaning is easily pasted onto things. There you go, there’s absolutely no reason not to call every scribble, burp or fart anyone has ever made ‘art’.
So why do some things end up in museums but others don’t? Well, there are basically two reasons why people would consider some things art and some not. Firstly, we would consider something art simply because it is old or beautiful. We’re brought up to believe the Mona Lisa is art, and so it is art. Secondly, it’s all to do with the level of pretentiousness of the artist or his crowd. Since we’ve established in the above paragraph that everything is art, including the following misspelling of the word ‘fanphare’, it must be utter whim that decides that THIS found toilet seat is art, but THAT destroyed rubber tire is negligible. There’s no discernable difference between the two, save that one was picked up by a human and put on display. Ergo, ‘art’ is only in the intention of the artist, it would seem. The actual value or expression of the work has little to do with it.
Put in another way: ‘art’ is meaningless. There is no inherent value that deciphers things as ‘art’, it’s only the pretentiousness of man that makes it so. And I have no desire to cater any longer to that horrible whim. That salon bubble of fawning art acolytes pretending there’s so much to the things they put on their wall. I’m not saying creations can’t have meaning or quality, I am saying the term ‘art’ is vapid and says nothing about that, whereas it is used often haughtily to lend things a false sense of grandeur. Of course there is a difference between the Mona Lisa and Goku Kisses Vegeta. But since the term ‘art’ has been shown not have intrinsic value, aren’t there better ways to point that out?
Why not use ‘pretty’, ‘daring’, ‘ingenious’, or any other adjective that does in fact have meaning? Using ‘art’, ‘artist’ or ‘artistic’ only serves to confuse the discussion. ‘Art’ is abused daily by almost everyone for their own nefarious purposes. To make their creations seem more valuable, to lend an air of prestige, simply be downright pretentious or to hide ones qualities behind nebulous locution. And since we all seem to collectively buy into the delusion that ‘art’ actually means anything, this is a powerful tactic. I say: no more of these shenanigans.
From now on, let’s call it what it is. Paintings, statues, comics. Let’s do away with that nasty little term ‘art’, so rooted in our culture, yet so very, damagingly meaningless.