The Purpose of Art

Rosa Bonhuer “The Horse Fair” Absolutely one of my favorite paintings.

Art: is the product or process of deliberately arranging symbolic elements in a way that influences and affects the senses, emotions, and/or intellect. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression. The meaning of art is explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics and even disciplines such as history and psychoanalysis analyze its relationship with humans and generations. -Wikipedia

Purpose of art

Art has had a great number of different functions throughout its history, making its purpose difficult to abstract or quantify to any single concept. This does not imply that the purpose of Art is “vague”, but that it has had many unique, different reasons for being created. Some of these functions of Art are provided in the following outline. The different purposes of art may be grouped according to those that are non-motivated, and those that are motivated. -Wikipedia

I think for the purpose of our discussion “motivated” art is what we’re talking about. Now there are too many motivations to mention and I don’t think that’s really what my sister was after when she asked me, “What makes a good photo?”. But the purpose of the image is one of the things to consider when thinking about if an image is successful or not. So, that said the sub-question is does this image fulfill it’s “purpose”? The funny thing about art is that once the viewer puts their own spin on what they are seeing the purpose may actually change a bit. If an artist has done there job than their original idea for the image should be read clearly, but as we as individuals bring our life’s experience to the moment that original “purpose” may seem different to us. Art’s organic nature is one of the things that I really love about it. So enough said…. how about some images?

I put this in because it succeeds in its purpose.

Images with a message.


Advertising	Representing	Teaching	Commenting

These are the most in your face kind of purposes, wouldn t you agree? So what about these?

Photograph by Robert Turner

Sorry I had to put a husky in there

What is the purpose of these images and do they succeed?

Obviously, purpose is only one element of this discussion, and there are many parts to yet be considered. I asked my sister the question, “If I took a photo of a pile of doggie doo doo among fall colored leaves, would that be a successful image?” What I’m getting at is that you don’t have to “like” an image for it to succeed in its purpose. Something ugly juxtaposed against something beautiful would have something to say. Oh man, I could so easily go off on a HUGE tangent about story and how important it is. LOL But I won’t.

OK, OK, I’m sorry I got on my soap box. And I know I’m not answering my questions. Mostly because I feel I know the answers. So here’s to hoping someone out there in cyber-world will find this an interesting discussion too, and I won’t just be talking to myself.

It’s OK I’m used to it.

(Images in this post were taken from a free images web page. Artist unknown unless specified.)

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