Tolstoy describes art as a form of language. It is a way that people communicate the emotions they have experienced to other people. If art is a language, does that mean that people have to learn not only to create it but to understand it? When people teach art in the classroom, they are teaching how to make it in the same way one might teach how to speak or write in a language. In a language class, though, people are also taught how to listen to the speech and how to read as well as how to speak or write. Without all of these skills one will never learn the language. It would seem to follow that people would need lessons in art comprehension before they could understand what the artist is trying to say. It would hardly be fair to condemn a piece of literature in German because it does not impact English speakers emotionally and other art that is not language specific might be the same way.
If this is true, than art should be judged by whether people who “understand its language” are infected by the emotions the artist intends and not by just anybodies response. This puts less stress on the artist who is not expected to be able to infect even people who profess to hate art, but only those who are inclined to understand. On the other hand, it reduces the viewership of art to those who have taken classes on it or studied it. It also makes art into something for the educated and not for the common man. Limiting art to the realm of the educated seems to be a mistake, but so does accepting only art that can infect people with emotions. In the latter case many pieces of art that are commonly well regarded would be considered bad art because it is asking a lot for people to not only see the emotion in the art, but to actually experience it for themselves.
Is art expected to instill emotions in people or is receiving impressions of emotions sufficient to make it good art?
No comments:
Post a Comment