RKYV Column #3 - Defining & Tolerating Art

The definition of art is a long, complex page with multiple branches for each division of work covered by the simple three letter word. To even try to focus on one definition would be rude. It would be a claim that one single definition rules supreme over the others, without question.

Therefore, for this column, it is best to state that art is a product of mankind, one that is meant to bring pleasure or stimulate the mind in some sort.

It is now safe to say that this definition is incredibly broad. Then again, the amount of artwork one can find around the planet is staggering. Some of it, at first, might not even appear to be creative works. It is only upon another person’s exclamation that one realizes exactly what they have on their hands.

This, of course, may explain why some people walk through a museum exhibit and find that another human being designed the exact same creation they once did, and now it’s the other person’s work that is being displayed. Perhaps creators themselves, in their desire to simply create and satisfy their raging muse, do not realize what they have on their hands. To them, the creation, the art, is nothing more than their baby.

Take my own experience. While wandering through our local art museum during this past late August, I saw many things that looked as if anyone could have scribbled. Everyone has seen this before. I think many have hurt themselves asking, “Why didn’t I think about making a living doing this? I could do it!”

This form of self-attack is not limited to hand paintings or painted clay mounds. The simplest of photos in a gallery are often the most powerful. Backgrounds captured at just the right moment; animals in the perfect pose; people in candid photos; all of these are often items in one’s own personal gallery.

Most art forms are still completely respected. Carvings, which take hours of dedication and resources, are often sold in stores as little art replicas. I myself have a perfect wooden fox figurine that cost me 50 Franks while in Switzerland last summer; it is in fact my own motivation to continue until I think the details are complete.

Other art forms are not quite revered as much as the woodcarver’s. In 2007, Pittsburgh’s local greenhouse took in glass artwork that imitated plant life and built the glass structures into their exhibit. This included seaweed-like tentacles in shades of purple and pink reaching for the roof, and an entire golden glass flower set up to appear to be dropping its withering petals into the water beneath it.

I went to see this and was stunned by the mastery the craftsman had over glass, to create such elegant and monstrously oversized structures.

Yet groups of people had the audacity to claim that this entire project, a series of masterpieces of color and observance in nature, was not art. The skill of glass blowing and sculpting, one that none of them could ever have achieved, was almost blocked out of the greenhouse by one group’s intolerance.

And this intolerance goes on into everyday life. Rap, a “music” form I myself cannot consider music by scientific definition, I will begrudgingly admit to being an art: it is badly written poetry to background beats.

In fact, my high school Imaginative Writing teacher could recall poetry readings and contests he would take his students to around Pittsburgh. The students from well-funded schools usually placed higher because of their usage of all elements within a good poem, because they could develop poetry to its maximum potential. Despite that, there was no denying that the minority competitors would indeed always have a good sense of rhyme and rhythm, two aspects of poetry they certainly learned from mainstream rap music.

I still hesitate to call it music, because while I may sound good to some, it certainly does not to me. Yet many people listen to this and consider it tasteful. I myself might be more tolerant if only the listeners would respect my displeasure and not blast this noise from cars and buildings.

Tolerance is the key to this issue.

Tolerance from all parties is as important as the artwork itself. Art, in all of its forms, is universal. It is universal in the fact that all cultures and all people have their own style of it. It is universal in the fact that people dislike it utterly or relish and bask in its glory, and in both cases there is some thought process as to what they see in the artwork.

Always be sure to give all art forms the benefit of the doubt and a good analysis before you write it off as terrible art completely. It just might not be terrible; it just isn’t made for your tastes.

Best of luck,
Larissa