What is Art "For"?

[theCryptofishist]

I know where I stand on this. Art is almost as old as human. We don't see any art earlier than those ostrich shell beads, because they are made from much less durable materials. (Even petrographs have a lifespan--erosion is not their friend.) We make it in good times for fun, we make it in bad times to help us make sense of our suffering. We make it to explore the world and its meaning to us. We make it because of the awe, we make it because we love beauty. We were probably making music and dance when we got out of the trees. We told stories. If you say there's a record of a human tribe in the anthropological record that didn't make art, I'll say we didn't look hard enough, or the anthropologist that said that had some wacky ideological ideas that blinded him or her to the art, or that you are a liar.

I guess I don't think art has to be "for" anything. I certainly don't think that counting it up in an economic sense is a useful approach. (Wilde's cynic again.)
I think that art makes us human and humans make art. (And the egg came first, dammit! Even if a lizard or dinosaur hatched out!)
But I thought it might be interesting to know how other people on the board feel and think about this.

[jkisha]

What she said.

[oneeyeddick]

I know where I stand on this. Art is almost as old as human. We make it because of the awe, we make it because we love beauty.

Wait for it starting at the :40 second mark...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkz83VFEk1A[/youtube]

[socks]

What art offers is space_a certain breathing room for the spirit.


John Updike

[Ugly Dougly]

Art is almost as old as human.

Indeed, before art, were we human at all?

[gaminwench]

I think we sang before we spoke...

[AntiM]

for fun
for laughs
for you
for me
for money
for profit
for fame and glory
for the children
for the win
for remembrance
for love, fortold
forgone, forgotten
forever
for art's sake

[marcgorcey]

It's what it's always been for: somebody wants to draw a picture, so they draw a picture. Essentially, nothing has changed.

[TomServo]

Some art makes me giggle. Better than going postal.

[Mister Jellyfish Mister]

It's the oil painting on your driveway from the leak in someone's old car. The more pressure in the engine, the bigger the art. It's also the reason for the proliferation of "No Parking" signs.

[jkisha]

I think art is more 'for' the artists' need to express themselves, and nothing more.

The effects of said expression on observers is where all the controversy lies.

[Ugly Dougly]

I think we sang before we spoke...

I was just thinking about that the other day, GW!!!
NPR piece about the human reaction to music - how we respond emotionally to certain notes, and how babies cry in a certain harmonic scale. How you can hear someone speak in a language you don't understand and still get the gist of their emotions.

[mudpuppy000]

To me it's turning a thought into reality.

[Isotopia]

All art is self-expression but not all self-expression is art.

I think too many people for get that on the playa.

[Simon of the Playa]

Its the language of creation.

[TomServo]

Simon...not you Simon.

[TomServo]

Paul Simon that is...my bad

[Simon of the Playa]

did someone say my name?

[TomServo]

not me

[Packoderm]

"Art is for introspection, proclamation, and celebration of our humanity."
by Pack O. Derm