Art

Today I feel like writing about Art. So that's exactly what I'll do.

The exact definition of what makes something art and not garbage is very vague to say the least. In general, art is something which possesses aesthetic value - but then again, what exactly is aesthetic value? Everybody seems to have his or her personal opinion of what classifies as art.

My take on the matter is as follows; There are two main parts to any work of art - the communicative part and the essential part.

The communicative part is the part of the art which pulls, attracts or entertains the spectator. In a piece of literature it would be the author's skill at writing which keeps the reader enchanted, for example. In a play it would be the actors' talent in acting, and so on and so forth.

The essential part is the part of the art which is what the artist is trying to communicate. In literature, this would either be the moral of the story or the emotions which the author is trying to convey. The essential part is either a logical essential part (i.e. trying to teach a lesson or express an opinion on an issue) or an emotional essential part (a sad story, a horror movie etc.)

Needless to say - one part without the other is not art. Some house music may be catchy, but it portrays no emotion and definitely no good sense- and hence is not art, but rather sound. It has the communicative part but not the essential part.

The essential part without the communicative part is not only very ineffective at being correctly communicated to the spectator but cannot be considered art as it would be more like a lesson. Of course, their are ways of making teaching an art- but these ways are not always implemented. Simply attaching an effective communicative part to the lesson (which is already in itself an essential part) would make it a piece of art overall.

Several performance arts are a lot of communicative part with very little essential part. Dancing, magic and drawing are three examples of artforms which find a very difficult time in having essential parts. One way of making it easier for them to have essential parts is perhaps integrating them with something else, for example an interpretive dance during a musical.

Anyway, I believe I have highlighted all I wanted to say on this subject. And now I shall allow my prose to come to a close.