The question “What is art?” has always bewildered and perplexed man endlessly. Though it is easy to give a broad definition of art, it is hard to describe its true nature. For art can only be viewed , felt or experienced not described. Many have even been more perplexed by the question “ What is the nature of aesthetic appeal?”
Since its creation, art has always been valued in terms of something else, either it has been valued for historic, cultural, political or social reasons. Art in the past has never ever been valued for it self thus making the term “art for art’s sake” appear ludicrous to many people. Yet art has to be valued only for it self and not in terms of other things.
Art has also been wrongly been valued for the moral and ethical benefits it is supposed to bestow on society or on the individual who views the work of art. When Beethoven criticized Mozart’s work “ Cosi Fan Tuttle” For its immoral characterization of Don Giovanni, Beethoven’s criticism was completely unjustifiable. For Beethoven character did not improve or undergo degradation while viewing the play neither did the audience’s characters undergo a drastic change. If it were true that art could actually impat a change in the viewers morality and ethics, then by the time an individual walks through an art gallery , her/his personality would have gone through a plethora of different stages of morality depending upon the work of art viewed. However as everyone or anyone who has been to an art gallery knows this is not true.
Art does not impose any values not does it bestow changes in personality, it just exists in it simplicity of being, of existing. Deep inside man knows that he values art only for itself not for what it represents yet he is so stunned by the discovery that it becomes hard to accept thereby at is related to other values.
The true nature of art is revealed by the experience of viewing art. Art has in it the capacity to make one forget the present, the now. As soon as one views art, one forgets the “have beens”, the “have nots” and the “will be’s” . Art takes a person away and hold the individual in freedom, freedom for doubt, fear, agony but most of all from life itself. In the experience of viewing art one is taken beyond the now and into the absolute moment of truth.
There are some people who ‘decide’ that there is something to be learned from art. Then there are other people who consciously decide not to judge art or learn anything from it but are so engrossed in the process of ‘not judging’ that the experience of art is lost.
Art cannot be judged only valued , it has in it a quality that gives us freedom, for it possess a beauty that is truth in itself. Benson once said that if there were to be a heaven it would be exactly like earth except devoid of suffering, pain and discontentment. Likewise art offers us a glimpse of heaven. It gives us the gift if being truly present in a moment, which is essentially the secret of happiness to live each moment even though only for a moment.
