What is the purpose of Art?

I can agree with both of you. I see art as a creative, expressive language. We all try to find ways to express what we feel and think but often times words do not properly share the message one wants to convey. The words we use have limits; they have definitions, sequential order, and "proper uses" while art is all about free expression and limitless possibilities. That may be why art can be seen as so many different things. A child finger painting is just as much of an artist as a Broadway singer/dancer or an architect. Art also does communicate to us on various levels and like Soultraveler said it has the ability to reach or wake up people that would normally be less receptive to something like a lecture or book. I also love the idea of an evolver art gallery.

And that's key! That's what I was thinking to say, anyway. A childlike apprehension of wonder and astonishment.

The creativity of the mankind expressed in the various arts
is THE divine characteristic of our kind.
Creation is god's work

love nama aum,
my friend Tico
b

"What is the purpose of art" is probably the same question as "what is art". Actually, I think it has a lot to do with purpose, because art seems to have a special relationship with utility. Sometimes taking a useful object and breaking it or recasting it somehow turns it into art. Why is this?

In any case, I agree that like language, we can use art for whatever we want to, but in relation to language, art is like poetry. But that doesn't make it useless... it can make it extremely useful. Mostly for seducing people to the cause and for showing things that can't be expressed in words or arguments. I think art is like a little bubble where we just let something 'be'. If you capture something in that little bubble, it's there for the whole world to see.

I don't think that art contains within itself the necessity to be used for political purposes... politics and illumination are a question that each and every one of us deal with. When the world has so many problems, it can be hard to personally justify creating art that is morally vapid and purely sensual. But someone might create playful art and still be very active politically. If art is how you play, why let a political situation touch it? What if someone likes to garden, should they make their garden into a political statement? No matter what kind of political or rhetorical art you create... and that includes art... there will be developed within it a piece of yourself that is just at play, bringing something into that little bubble of letting it be.

Personally I am a fan of everything having a dual purpose. I think that art can be political and playful at the same time... even in a subtle way, and many other things besides. Maybe in the future, the act of creating any sort of art will be considered a crime!

Cheers,

Meade

Art is meditation! Shame we can't post our own examples of our creativity..

This is one of those proverbial discussions that occurs throughout every art school in the world. And it is one that always goes round and round. For me the simplest definition of purpose and whats is Art is Communication. We artists are connecting with our audience. Sometimes that audience is ourselves. Sometimes that audience is the whole world. Sometimes the few, sometimes no one at all. But we use the forms: words, body, paint, canvas, mud, steel, the list goes on ad infinatum.... to communicate something. If it is really important that we are being heard and a message is there, it may be in the use of symbols or words which are direct. If it is more abstract then maybe just a few blotches of paint.... nevertheless... it connects right?

My art is communicating the abstract through the use of pointing a finger at the moon. And often the moon I am pointing at is not in the picture. What is behind the behind is what interests me. Telling stories that write themselves through the reader's perception is key. Often I don't know what will be communicated. Or better yet, I know what I meant and I am facinated by what others read there... from their own perceptions. Did I mean that... well yes, I meant that.

I don't play with activist art very much. I prefer to wander and express what is being reflected in my world, story and life through the abstraction of energy pathways....

Thus I agree... it is meditation, it is frivolous, it is purposeless and purposefull, absolutely play, illuminating, god's (spirit's) work through humans, the unconventional conventionalists..... It is being in freedom.

Being in Freedom

Michaelraven
To me, Art is a Vechicle in the Creation of an Expereince called AWE.
If we as Artists Can create for another an Experience which allows ONESELF to Leave his Normal Day to Day and create an Openning for something New to Emerge within his or her own psyche then the Art has done its Purpose.

Not to sound too redundant but yes, art is definitely a form of language, an extremely complex form of language transcending beyond linear syntaxes, and rule-sets. Although pretty much all forms of art do form rule-sets, there is still an infinite possibility for expansion into new territories within the medium itself, expanding or changing the rules. Perhaps the whole of art is a no-boundaries, ever-expansive continuum of potential conscious expression.

Art has guided the spirit of humanity, upholding convictions, expressing the flavor of the moment, in some form or another. Art is here to capture the art in everything, in the present moment documented for the eyes of eternity. I would like to think that all art-forms, (perhaps mostly in the visionary context) have been individual interpretations or projections of a morphogenetic field surrounding a particular time, place, or society.

Art has been a key ingredient in many, if not nearly all revolutionary movements. The intention put behind a piece of art is perhaps the most important aspect in the creation of art. I think the purpose of visionary art is multi-faceted. One of the most interesting aspects is its ability to influence and imprint psychedelic experiences. As a musician, I try to encompass the psychedelic experience as best as I can, making it an integral aspect of my motivation and integrate it into my creation process. Another great aspect of visionary art is the ability to identify a visual terrain in a visionary painting. For example, as many psychedelic explorers have this experience, after a few years of experiences, I found myself awe-struck when confronted with a particular Alex Grey painting, thinking to myself: "Hey I've seen that before, I recognize that! I guess someone else has too! Wow!"

Interesting when America was a Native American Country, the Language wasn't English.
English was Brought Over to Unite America Into One Language, and I believe that was a Good Thing, Bringing many different Languages Spoken into ONE that worked together for a Common Cause, which IS Now again the CURRENT CALLING, a Tremendous leap of Faith for all Parties Involved...

The Notion of Creating Art Project's that Illuminate these Idea's is what is Paramount....

Focusing our attention on all Art coming from a Common New Language with a Common Purpose, people will be drawn to it Organically...The New Narrative that goes along with the Art is the Educational Piece which is More Valuable then the Art Itself...

I Believe Alex Grey's Art Is an INtented Movement Of this Same Creation and there are Many Thousands even 10 of thousands of Artists, Who Know this Energy...

We are the Wave Riders of the New AGE

Love the Conversation
Michael Raven for You

We get to play in a wholly AWEsome new-old native language together! Illuminating visionary recognition with purposeful poetry, limitlessly seeding changes that further express the divine within. Meditative morphogenetic crime for no sake but revolutionary action beyond gravity. Go intentionally creative wave riders! 4x4s to print for spores!

Tico, I'll put up a bare pencil sketch if you want to throw down some color.

Namaste!

Reading through your Question once again I had a few Other reflections and insights into your thinking I feel would be helpful.

We are Narratives. WE Invent ourselves out of, narratives, and we live withinside these narratives as what is Real..., the purpose of any narrative wheather art related or not, should take oneself to another view of your own view, and transforms your view that then creates more possibility. the Narrative expands your own sense of reality.
If one isn't able to incorporate something else within there View of things , they are beholden to a narrative, then as Belief, and beliefs AREN'T Real. WE have the majority of Beings on the planet who are Leaders completely Blind to the real possibilities of what it means to be Fully Human...

Your Question below SoulTraveler, can be put into a Kind of Narratative of Thinking, I am only going to point out one where I find your Narrative lives outside of the Realm of Reality, it lives in a structured idea which when carefully examined isn't real.

" We have been placed here to go beyond the "5 sense wage slave" mentality".

How many of us Are REALLY Fully CONSCIOUS? USING ALL of our FIVE SENSES , how much in denial physically and emotionally are We truly? YOU can not expect to GO healthy into any other realm if haven't fully developed completely all 5 First , this is Spiritual Law which you can not avoid .

How Conscious are We regarding our own unconsciousness about the 5 Senses that we do Have that we aren't fully developing or using properly?
We Can not even consider going further then our Consciousness will allow. if we are more unconscious then conscious we are totally doomed.

We are Asleep at the Wheel, dreaming we are Conscious.
And if you believe you aren't unconscious, then your totally BLIND, but even worse then Blind, because your not only Blind your also Blind to your OWN blindness...

A Very Deep Rabbit Hole to Get out of ON your Own ,

There are only 1 tenth of one percent on the planet as we speak that are fully alive as Humans. The rest are ONLY praying for that Miracle, Sorry thats Just the way it is, But if we can hear it and listen when they do speak we will have a better chance of developing ourselves into Fully evolved fully functional Human Beings, and when that Happens to you Personally it leaves the Realm of a Mentality...

I am NOT against exploration of other realms or other Realities. I Personally live in Two Worlds at the sametime and I have found that to be what is Most Comforting...

But it will take a NEW NARRATIVE within our thinking about what it means to be fully human within all Domains of Permanent Living.
Art can be a GREAT medium of Change and again the essense of the Art has to be focused and directed in such a Powerful way that it moves people through all there emtions and fears and allows them to Let them Go and move beyond!!!

It is Our own Mentality that needs adjusting About How two Develop the Senses we already know we have and then and only then be in a position to move further with a Real Guide...

IT's GReaT to Be Heard...
May the Light of AWE be with US ALL
The Purpose of Art is AWE to Inspire

Yo...

Check out this piece on Lila about the origins and geneology of Visionary art -

http://lila.info/art/interviews/on-visionary-art-and-on-drawing.html

It traces the bloodline of modern masters like Alex Grey and Robert Venosa back through the aeons to the shamanic cave paintings of pre-history, relating modern motivations to primordial and timeless human concerns.

Peace,

Rob

Each person is an artist with a unique, individual style. What we call art may simply be what ever means of expression one chooses to display their inner most thoughts and feelings.

I am not sure what the purpose of art is but I can share what I create art.

I create to soothe my impulse to self destruct.
I create to share my darkest and dirtiest secrets because I am too afraid to say them out load.
I create because making art makes me want to fuck.
On the days that I spend hours painting, building, or sewing I find that for the next two or three nights I have amazing creams.
I create because it takes me back to a time when I knew what happiness was.
I create art because I miss feeling innocent and full of hope.

Art to me is an intentional creative act involving any kind of medium available.

What it does, is EVERYTHING!

It is a communication, a form of media all on its own. It can expand the way we see, and what we see in the world. It can change ideas, be propaganda, or just document a view of a thought or event.

I do believe that there is a difference between someone doodling with water colors and a painter like Venosa or Dali, but I think that we are all capable of making art which impacts or documents culture in some way.

There is something beautiful about the act of creation, and putting a mind-symbol into the world, maybe it is the god in us?

Excellent question, and amazing answers.

http://emergingvisions.blogspot.com

upcoming issue of Emerging Visions visionary art 'zine:

The theme is to be "Spacing Outward".

If you are interested, the link to the Submissions Guidelines is near the top of the "Contributors' Page" --

scroll down through the current issue:

http://emergingvisions.blogspot.com

feel free to send this message Outward

I don't see art any differently then I see life.
It's something that IS, & has no meaning & doesn't need one.
It's spirit, it's expression, it's feeling, it's science, it's energy, it's a direct reflection of what is.
:) And to be present to this, present to it, can be a great gift.

For me, creating art frees me from my ego mind, from limits of time and space and connects me to the source, the oneness from which we all come. In this way an artist, in sync and in flow, becomes a channel through which the great mysteries of the universe is revealed. That energy lives on in the product, the artwork, which is a result of the process of creating art.

L I F E

yup

Much Luv
Respect
Rasta
Me

Gotta ru no more fun for now u all rock so hard-------------------------F N Bring ItMuch Luv
Respect
Rasta
Me

to awaken the collective unconscious