you might think there was a simple answer to this after all we know how to say what most things are for like this or that and people flock to museums like never before so they must have
their motives but when it comes to art people get strangely afraid to ask too directly what it
might all be for because well everyone except you might know the answer already it's perhaps too obvious it's too complicated the result is an awkward silence and a lot of confusion but maybe it shouldn't be that hard to say what art is for maybe we can have a go at describing
certain rather clear purposes to art here's five things that art might be able to do for us it's an obvious but striking fact that the most popular works of art in the world show pretty things happy people flowers in spring blue skies this is the top-selling postcard in the world from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York this enthusiasm for prettiness worries serious types a lot they wonder have people forgotten what life's really like but that seems a misplaced worry we need pretty things close to us not because we're in danger of forgetting the bad stuff orbecause terrible problems weigh so heavily on us that were in danger of slipping into despair and depression that's why prettiness matters it's an emblem of Hope which is an achievement prettiness those flowers and blue skies and kids in meadows is hope bottled and preserved waiting for us when we need it the world often requires us to put on a cheerful facade but beneath the surface there's a lot of sadness and regret that we can't express from fear of seeming weird or a loser one thing art can do is reassure us of with and for us some of the world's greatest works of art have been loved for their capacity to make the pain that's inside all of us publicly visible and available like putting on a sad piece of music somber works of art don't have to depress us rather they can give us the welcome feeling the pain is part of the human condition art fights the false optimism of commercial society it's there to remind us with dignity that every good life has extraordinary amounts of confusion suffering loneliness and distress within it and that therefore we should never aggravate sadness by feeling we must be freakish simply for experiencing it quite a lot all of us are a little unbalanced in some way we're too intellectual too emotional too masculine or too feminine to calm or too excitable the art we love is frequently something we're drawn to because it compensates us for what we lack it counterbalances us when we moved by a work of art it may be because it contains concentrated doses of qualities we need more of in our lives perhaps it's full of the serenity we admire but don't have enough of perhaps it's got the tenderness we longed for but that our jobs and relationships are currently lacking or perhaps it's diffused with a pain and drama we've had a stifle but want to get in touch with sometimes a whole society falls in love with a certain style in art because it's trying to re balance itself like France in the late 18th century that wanted de vivre is a corrective to its decadence or Britain in the 19th century that look to the pre-raphaelites to counter the effects of brutal industrialization the art a country or a person calls beautiful gives you vital clues as to what's missing in them it's in the power of art to help us be more rounded more balanced and more sane the media is constantly giving us hints about what's glamorous and important art also tells us about what's glamorous and important but fortunately given that you weren't invited again to the Oscars this year it usually picks on some very different things Albrecht Durer makes grass look glamorous John Constable draws our attention to the skies van Gogh reminds us that oranges are worth paying attention to Marcel Duchamp challenges us to look again at the seemingly mundane these artists aren't falsely glamourizing things that are better ignored that justly teasing out a value that's been neglected by a world with it deeply distorted an unfair sense of what truly matters art returns glamour to its rightful place highlighting what's genuinely worth appreciating nothing seems further from good art than propaganda the sort encouraging you to fight or what government to support but one way to think about art is that it is a sort of propaganda in a sense of a tool that motivates and energizes you for a cause only its propaganda on behalf of some of the most important and nicest emotions and attitudes in the world which it uses its skills to make newly appealing and accessible it might be propaganda about the simple life or about the need to broaden one's horizons or about a more playful tender approach to life it's a force that stands up for the best sides of human nature and gives them a platform and an authority in a noisy distracted world for too long arts attracted a little too much reverence and mystique for its own good in its presence with like someone meeting a very famous person we get stiff and lose our spontaneity we should relax around it as we already do with music and learn to use it for what it's really meant for as a constant source of support and encouragement for our better selves you.
