Once in a while every artist bumps on the same old question; What is art?
During the years I?ve embraced different definitions about the concept of art. Also the nasty ones, like;
– Art is just decoration
– Art is someone else?s therapeutic crap
– Art is overrated moneymaking, etcetera
Probably not very different than the opinions of non-artists.
None of these definitions was lasting and I still don?t have the exact answer. But the last years (you know, the years of more nuanced thinking, haha) the definitions that reconciled the best to me are;
- Art should touch your emotions. Disturbance or annoyance are ok too, but personally I?m more after the positive emotions.
- Art should raise questions.
Yep. Both quite oldies. So apparently me too, had to re-inventing the wheel.
Recently someone asked me why I put that small gap in Populus Flucta.
I couldn?t reply directly, because I had to think about it. In fact it was a good question. The longer I thought about it, the more extensive my answer became. And that?s where this blog started …
Now I can conclude that definition 1 and 2 both are suitable. The emotion I wanted to get out of it was ‘the desire’ to walk to the peep hole.
And question it should raise: ?What is around the corner in the peep hole?
But at the same time this last question could be an emotion too: Curiosity.
So maybe I can narrow my definition of art again. It just and only should touch emotions.