The Role of Art In our Life And society is very important question for every artist and art student.The artist observes the external reality of life and presents it through his medium poetry, painting, sculpture or architecture in a manner which makes it an object of beauty and imaginative pleasure. A man observes a sunset, which is a spectacle of rare beauty: the artist observing the same spectacle captures and preserves it in his painting.
A sculptor carves out of inanimate stone of bronze the figure of a female, which bears of striking resemblance to the original. Thus out of dead material, the artist creates something which has the same effect on an observer as a living being A poet, for instance,immortalised in verse the pangs of unrequited love or the inconsolable grief of a mother at the death of her only son. The artist creates things of everlasting beauty and emotional appeal.
What Everyone Must Know About The Role of Art
“What is the use of works of art?” a cynic might ask. Apparently a work of art has no practical utility in the sense in which a pair of shoes or a plate of mangoes have. The shoes help to cover a man’s feet and protect them from heat and cold, while the mangoes can satisfy his hunger. A poem, a picture or a song does not have such a practical value. They will not satisfy a person’s physical hunger nor shield him from the inclemencies of weather. Their function is different and high. They satisfy man’s intellectual and emotional hunger his aesthetic susceptibilities and tastes. Man does not merely eat and drink and sleep: he has a mind, a heart and soul. He requires food as much for his spirit as for his body. It is the artist who provides man with intellectual and spiritual fare.
All Art Explores The Beauty And Charm
All art is a creation of beauty and a thing of beauty is a joy forever. There is the beauty of a woman’s form and figure,the charm of nature’s landscapes, the beauty of flower and fruit, of bird and beast and finally the intangible elusive beauty of human emotions. The artist roams all over this vast field of loveliness, picks and chooses what appeals to him and expresses it in his particular medium of art. The creation of beauty is one of the highest services that the artist renders to his fellow beings. What is more the artist does not merely reflect the beauty of the external world: he creates beauty where the common man does not find anything beautiful.
A painter’s landscape is more appealing than a real landscape. The reason is that the painter is not a mere photographer; he presents not the bare external reality as it is , but reality as seen by him. It is the painter’s mental approach which gives a new charm and glow to his work. The artist can select and reject and present an idealised aspect of reality. The artist’s, the poet’s world is, therefore, more perfect and richer than the actual world. Hence the artist is not a mere reproducer of reality but a creator; a being whose active imagination and finer susceptibilities perceive more than the common man.
The Role of Art In Literature Where Writers Express Their Imagination Through Art
It may be questioned whether the artists can indulge in idealization according to his sweet will. If art is unlimited freedom to romanticism life is it not another name for misrepresentation and distortion of truth? According to poetic, justice, for instance, virtue is rewarded and vice punished, whereas in actual life the virtuous often suffer while the wicked thrive. Again, in every romantic tale the lovers meet in the end and live happily ever after, but the actual experience of man is painfully different. Life is too complex to be faithfully represented by the simplified formulae of a romantic artist. Hence it is contended that an artist, worth his salt, cannot be allowed to live in the proud isolation of his ivory tower and draw fanciful pictures of life.
An artist can render service.it is contended, to his fellow beings only if his creations are a faithful representation of life and reality. This nation has greatly influenced the nature of the art and literature throughout the ages and given rise to realism. Much can certainly be said in favor of realism. Art and literature have emerged out of the stage of the fairy tale: common men and women and not kings and queens, nobles and ladies should form the subject-matter of literature and art. This tendency towards realism and democratization is a healthy sign.
In the modern world escapes literature or purely romantic art is out-of-place, though not entirely non-existent. It is certainly one of the sacred duties of the artist to represent everyday life, its problems and complexities, and not merely transport his readers into a romantic world of his own which has little or nothing in common with our world. This explains why the novels of Hardy, George Gissing, Prem Chand, Tolstoy and scores of other modern writers have a greater appeal to the modern mind than the epics of Homer, Virgil, Firdausi or Tulsidas.
Do you Know Art Is Linked With Realism
Closely allied to-the problem of realism is the question whether art should be for art’s sake or for life’s sake. To put it differently, can the artist serve his community better by reflecting life purely as it is or by painting it in a manner so as to provide inspiration and edification to the people? Accent on ultra-realism would exclude the possibility of any didactic element in art. And yet some of the greatest writers and artists have been fired with a mission a zeal to awaken humanity and put it on the right track.
Wordsworth strove to inculcate nature worship, Shelley was a zealous reformer and iconoclast, ever brushing aside social, moral and political cobwebs. The writings of Carlyle are fired with a missionary spirit. Dickens utilised his stories to expose the ills of Victorian England. Prem Chand has dissected the various evils of Indian society: Galsworthy is a champion of the social underdog, Matthew Arnold summed up this principle by calling ‘Poetry a criticism of life’, i.e., a means of elevating human beings.
Does The Role of Art Sometimes Make You Feel Stupid?
The presence of the ennobling and inspirational element in literature and art is certainly a very healthy feature. All great literature and art are to awaken the highest and noblest emotions of man. In fact literature presents the highest models of human conduct for posterity to emulate. When we wish to explain the sincerity of a woman’s love and devotion, we do not think of the wife of our friend, but of Kalidasa’s Shakur.tala or Shakespeare’s Juliet: similarly, our nation of man’s cruelty towards women is best expressed by referring to Hardy’s Tess or Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.
The best instances of heroism, sacrifice, patriotic fervour, as also jealousy, revenge and intrigue are furnished by literature. It is in this respect that literature and art govern human conduct and Shelley called poet the unacknowledged legislators of the world. What the artist can achieve through his creations is beyond the scope of laws or police force or other kinds of pressure.
Nevertheless, there is a limit beyond which art cannot be exploited for purposes of instruction or edification. In fact, the greatest artist teaches unconsciously and indirectly, without any avowed didactic aim. Shakespeare has touched the whole gamut of human emotions and every kind of moral lesson can be derived from his Plays. Macbeth paints the nemesis of ambition; King Lear draws the horrors of ingratitude; Hamlet is a tragedy of excessive brooding and introspection; The Merchant of Venice is a passionate plea for religious and social tolerance; and yet nobody would claim that any of these plays is a didactic sermon. Whenever the artist places instruction above truth to life, he plays false to his genius, and prostitutes his art. The artist cannot be exploited for purposes of mass propaganda, pure social and moral reform.
The tragedy of exploiting art for ulterior purposes is best seen in the progressive literature of today. The didactic sting in this literature is so prominent that it ceases to be literature and degenerates into sheer social and political sermonizing. The same is true of art and literature which are inspired by communist ideology. In fact in communist countries literature is only a part of the gigantic political mission of brain-washing, but the fact is that an artist is not a partisan: on the contrary he is a no party m?n, a dispassionate observer of life and its problems.
The Advantages Of Different Types Of the role of art
Lure of money, fear of persecution—these considerations do not weigh with a true artist. He is, of course, a human being, but he lives his own, life, follows his own code of work, and though he lives in society, is a member of his community, he lives in it very much like a lotus in a muddy pool. The artist cares not for popularity, fame, or power: he may be poor and obscure but he is intensely in love with humanity and his only aim is to represent his own impression of life and the world in as faithful and beautiful a manner as he can.
The task and responsibilities of the artist are onerous, and exacting. To expect him to discharge them successfully through sheer personal will, exertion and fidelity to his ideals is to clothe him with superhuman powers. The artist, it is true, owes a duty to society, but society too cannot ignore to do its duty by him. It is said people will have the government they deserve. Even more it is true that a society will have the artists it wants.
Art and literature do not grow in a vacuum: they are the product of the collective thoughts and emotions of people at a particular time. The artist, despite all his originality and independence, cannot completely ignore or rise above the social scene, be entirely imperious to the spirit of the times. Hence the greatness of the artist and his creations will rest, to a considerable extent, on the greatness of the people among whom he lives and has his being. He crystallizes largely the inarticulate thoughts and sentiments of his age, though, in the process, he sublimate and ennobles them through the creative energy of his imagination.
It is this significant which explain why, for instance, the keynote of the literature of Restoration age in England was cynicism and a total neglect of the fundamental moral of man. Again, the literature of the times of Elizabeth I was vigorous and inspiring because a wave of confidence, heroism and adventure had swept over the people in those days. Similarly, Urdu poetry gloried in themes of heroism, devotion or sex-love according as the people paid homage to these ideals.
Conclusion
In the final analysis, it is the common mass of men and their ideology and ways of thought and feeling which go to determine the character of its artists. A people desirous of great art and literature have to be great themselves. Art is not a gift which drops from heaven, nor an imposition from outside; it is the people’s own creation. The people are the plastic material which their artist shapes into form of beauty and charm. The people, therefore, have to be worthy of the artist’s magic touch. They are expected to have in them the raw material for great art. This is exactly what Milton meant when he observed that in order to be a great poet, one has to be a great poem himself.
