What is art for discussion

When I ask myself the question “what is art for”, the first idea that comes to my mind is that art is for people’s spiritual developments. To me, art is something that inspires people and motivates people from all time to become better human beings. I remember myself being motivated by artworks and start to think about philosophical questions when standing in front of artworks. In my mind, I thought the answer to ‘what is art for’ must be profound and philosophical.

However, Ellen’s answer to this question is simple, straightforward, and amazingly insightful: Art is for life’s sake. She first mentioned that art must “be viewed as an inherent universal or biological trait of the human species” and a natural process. She outlined the development of art including how in medieval times art started within the service of religion and later becomes an ideology. She mentioned that there is the phenomenon of a ‘disinterested attitude that is separate from one’s own personal interest in the object, its utility, or its social or religious ramifications’ (page 17) and how the appreciation of art has become an emphasis on art for being art’s sake. In the discussion of what is art, Ellen explicitly disagreed with the idea of art being an inaccessible high culture and argues that art is essentially for like’s sake. She mentioned that art’s “heritage of specialization and self-proclaimed irrelevance permits it to be dismissed by school and governmental budget makers as a ‘frill’ and that art is more than necessary. I think that art is not only a behavior of making, but also an experiential realm that could not be substituted. Art is not only for life’s sake, but also for the sake of promoting virtues and deeper understandings of the world among people. Art is a public sphere that should be treated seriously.