"All Art is Quite Useful"

I spent the last week working on an end of the year project that basically acted as a portfolio in addition to a time-based work of art. Said project led to a disagreement with a teacher (who is a dada/historical/postmodern photographer) as to why artists should cater to the general public. We should create solely for other artists, since artists are the ones who determine what art truly is. The media simply reports what happens in the world.

Art is art just because he and the art world say so? Therefore, artwork has just become an extension of their ego - a tangible artifact of social/intellectual worth. Let's just completely forget the ultimate goal of art in the first place: the creation of an effect on the onlooker

This left me, a symbolist/art nouveau/decadence/surrealist artist, to feel the need to justify my work. So I started trying to write what art wasn't, but I felt like I was limiting it too much. So here's is some thoughts on what I know it to be:

--Inspiration
--A catalyst for wisdom
--A window to somewhere else
--A creation made from patience and quality
--A creation independent of the creator and reality
--Something universally understood to be valuable
--An order from chaos
--An emulation/description of aspects of what it means to be human that is understandable to humans.
--Something that fulfills the emotional and spiritual needs of humans, regardless of time period, profession, or education level.



And a few quotes I strongly agree with:

"Man's individuality or singularity is not a barrier to the universality of the will, but is subordinated to it...Everyone recognises himself or his own will in this act... Even those who could not create such a work find their own essence expressed .... Such a work is therefore truly universal. The more its individual creator dissolves in it, the more approval it earns."
(Georg Wilhelm F. Hegel, Sämtliche Werke, Dritter Band, "Philosophische Propädeutik, Gymnasialreden und Gutachten über den Philosophie-Unterricht" 1927


"The artist is a receptacle for the emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web. ... The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls. ... We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth. ..." (Jackson Pollock)