As a creative artist, trying to conceptualise the meaning of art is something I find difficult to do, how can something be so simple and yet complex? I started writing poems as a child before I knew what it was called, I could remember how retarded those words were, I called it my thoughts in lines.
The main idea behind it was to find a way to write down my thoughts in a way only I would understand but gradually from just thoughts in lines it became poems. Eventually I got introduced to hive blockchain a place I believe to have the capacity of offering an audience to my poems. Whenever I get comments on my poems and all, only a few people were able to decipher some of the hidden meaning behind the words and that is the beauty of art work.
Most people only care about the pleasant experience they get from a work of art while others, it is understanding its meaning that is pleasurable to them. We all seek out art work from different reasons. A division of art I so much admire is painting, you might be looking at a painting in an art gallery and all you see is a drawing of a thing or human, it could be something as disoriented as a splash of paint on the wall, you keep staring at it and all you see is just disorder from there the idea begins to form. You will start wondering what state of mind the artist was while making the piece, was he/she trying to pass a message? Or probably not but for curious minded people and lover of art this is how their mind works when they see a work of art.
As an artist this I can say, every work of art is created for a particular purpose. An artist might not even realise it at the moment but as time goes by it becomes clearer, that is why you see some artist create art works and would be unable to find a name for it at the moment, it suddenly feels like there is no right words to describe their creation. For every art work with a purpose or reason for its creation, its meaning is carved out of it and its message is embedded in its meaning. The lowest of all art work have a meaning even if its meaning is unidentifiable to most people.
I remember a time during my higher national diploma days, I was offering a subject called critical writing, our lecturer walks in one day and asked us a question about a movie, only few of us seems to know this movie, can't really remember the movie name but it was a documentary. She asked us to go home and jot down any points that stand out in the movie.
I waited till weekend before I watched the movie but one thing I can say that stood out about the movie was that it was extremely boring. It was not something I could just skip through, I tried my best to jot down some points, in our next class she asked if we had watched the movie we all nodded but from our facial expressions it was obvious that we didn't enjoy the movie.
Then she went ahead and taught us how to review and critique a movie, after the class was over I went back home to watch the movie again surprisingly I was seeing things I never saw before, it is kind of difficult to find a meaning in what you don't understand and also it is easy to miss what you aren't looking for. The movie had other meaning to me after I watched the second time, in fact it was more entertaining.
Which means criticising art work is subjective to individual ability to interpret it meaning due to differences in individual perspective and taste but apart from this, we also have societal standards set by the society, created by scholars to judge art work and rate it. It based on this highlighted guidelines that most people tend to derive their judgement from when deciding if a specific art work is good or bad.
There are numerous guidelines set to critique art work but it is derived from two major factors; quality of art work and its message. Here is the fun fact, no matter how a work of art is, its carries a message, an expression of the author left to be deciphered by the public. What leads to bad judgement of art works is if the message carried by the art work is somehow perceived as negative or conflicting in nature.
Imagine someone painting a religious or political figure in a way that defame their personality, no matter how beautiful the art work is, it is definitely going to face serious negative criticism and so, it might be labelled bad art. It doesn't really matter if the message in the painting or any work of art is right or wrong, as long as its message doesn't sit well with people and it doesn't fit into societal standards, it is called a bad art.
Based on the complexity of art works, as long as it is an art work which carries an expression of the author, it can't be deprived of its creative essence, which means an art work will still remain an art work regardless of societal criticism. That is why most times, I find myself asking one question, what is the essence of art? Is it a means of expression or a piece of trash that can only have meaning after being acknowledged by the society?
This write-up was inspired by weekly featured content titled Bad art in hive learners community.
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