What is art for? When I first think about this question, I believe that art is created by human to express emotions and record history. After I read Dissanayake’s article “Art For Life’s Sake,” I found our opinions are similar. He believes art refer to three aspects, as he states, “First, that the idea of art encompasses all of human nature (i.e. as far back as the Paleolithic or even earlier); second, that it include all human societies (i.e. is anthropological or cross cultural); and third, that it accounts for the fact that art is a psychological or emotional need and has psychological or emotional effects” (Dissanayake 15). I really agree with Dissanayake that art is highly related to our life and we can say art come from the life. Art can reflect the human development in the history. In different historical period, the art has different styles and these different art styles can show the different features of societies in that time. For instance, the god-centered art had dominant position in medieval times, and this kind of art reflects that people believe they were created by god; however, during the renaissance, the man-centered art became popular because the modern science started to develop (Dissanayake 16).
I think art is not a kind of reachless thing for general people but everyone can creates art and can be considered as artist. As Dissanayake argued, “Artists, just like everybody else, do not see the world in any singularly privileged or objectively truthful way, but rather – like everybody – interpret it according to their individual and cultural sensibilities” (Dissanayake 19). If people can express their emotion through their artworks, they should be considered as artists. There is no absolute standards to judge an artwork is good or bad while the important thing is if the artwork can express something.
I have a question to the reading. As Dissanayake mentions, “…art as a kind of behavior that developed as they evolved, to help them survive” (16). I do not understand that how art help human to survive. I think art is important for our life because it can enrich our life. However, I do not think art is necessary for our survival. Without art, we still can live in the Earth though our life quality could be decreased.
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