Living in a world full of art

The world full of art touches all of us everyday. It is on our TVs, our radios, hanging on our walls, even glowing from our computer screen. In addition to its beauty and entertainment value, art can give us a snapshot of human civilization at any time.


Look around you, wherever you are -your room, your house, your classroom, at the mall, even on the streets. What do you see? what do you hear? Art has been a part of your world, our world, the human world since, well, at least since the Stone Age. In fact, if it weren't for art, we would know very little of human history-in any age, but especially those ages before humans began to write. You see, ever since the earliest artist sketched bison on the side of a cave, art, in each culture, has been an extension of humankind. It has served as the reflection of the opinions, culture, and historical events of the times.

Through art we can look back and see the changes in politics, social roles, clothing, theater, even parties. It's all there in black and white and red, blue, purple, and orange. It's there in paintings, statues, poems, songs, dance, and cartoons. Much that art, especially the special visual art, has been placed in museums so everyone can have a chance to see it. But not all art is in museums.

Humans have always enhanced their immediate surroundings with art in some form or another.. Now you look around again. Do you see any art? Any posters on the wall? Illustration on the book covers? Design on T-shirts?. Now open your ears. Do you hear any art> What kind(s) of music do you hear? Classical, rock, pop, fusion, traditional?. We like every other human civilization, have made art a part of our daily existence.

What is art?

Ok. Art is wonderful. art is interesting. art is ( arrrgh ) educational. Great adjectives but what exactly is art?.



Now does that definition really help you understand what art means? Probably not. Welcome to the problem. Art is subjective, which means its definition changes depending on who experiencing it, so virtually any definition for art has to use words that are subjective .

Words and phrases like "beautiful", "appealing', and "more than ordinary significance" mean many things to many people, and often mean different things. This problem of defining art has plagued society for centuries. ( In fact, there is a whole arm of philosophy, called "aesthetics", dedicated just to debating what is and is not beautiful.)

One more problem in defining art is the emotional aspect of it . In its simplest form, art is really just another form of communication. But usually what an artist is trying to communicate is a feeling-the words to a song or the colors in a picture have been combined to bring about an emotional reaction in the audience. And no all artist are aiming at bringing out warm and fuzzy feelings! Some artist want their art to make you angry or sad...