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.