The purpose of art is to give pleasure, full stop — and this applies even to the tragedy...

>The purpose of art is to give pleasure, full stop — and this applies even to the tragedy, the most extreme seemingly "pessimistic" artform.

Do you agree?

I'd take it one step back and just say that art is something designed to stimulate

Art has a lot of different purposes- beauty, hidden meaning (layers,) breaking rules, ect. The best artists are great at all three. Not all art is pleasurable to witness.

>The purpose of art is...
>Art is defined as...
>This is/isn't art because...
Yawn.

>Not all art is pleasurable to witness.
You're right, I don't find any pleasure in most sketches and sculptures from early human history. But can you explain why we have moved past early human history sketches and sculptures if not because we want things that are more pleasurable than what we already have?

You're right, but give him an argument if you want to change his mind
Think about schools of art in history. Humanity always attempts to get better at things that they care about. Yes, we often want our art to be pleasurable to look at or listen to, but creatively we want to push boundaries and we want to have more understanding about the ways to express ourselves, ideas, and the world. If we are good at anything, we are most definitely good at discovering things, both in art and in science.

>push boundaries
>have the same "what if it wasn't well crafted, but was like REALLY deep dude" art installations for decades
whoa, is this the power of art?

By push boundaries I meant new techniques, physically speaking as well as with idea representation. I don't think some modern art exhibitions are visually pleasing, but I can recognize that there is meaning behind some pieces. Don't judge what you don't understand, senpai.

Regardless, the 2deep4youness of contemporary art has stigmatized art to be a craft for lazy crybabies who think they're above criticism. And that's a shame cause it has devalued art in western culture

I think there may be a higher level of superficiality in modern art, as it is easier to hide it given how simple the art is allowed to be. The superficiality was present in earlier art too, however, it is just more difficult to condemn because the artist still needed to have good technique. Think about what art sticks with us through time, and why it does.

>Decades
Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" is from 1917. Its been 100 years in the making.

I'd say it is an expressive work meant to communicate on some level other than literally (though, as they case with a novel, ply or poem, it may communicate literally as well.)

I'm aware that leaves out much of what is sold as "art." I can live whit that.

At that has nothing to communicate is decoration at most, regardless of the skills of the creator or the aesthetics of the work.

That image makes me wanna puke. Let me post something better.

depends what kind of pleasure you seek

art is something conceptualized in the mind, captured and displayed for others to interpret and experience.

I think it can be many things, depending of the person.

The purpose of art is to evoke emotion.

Wrong

correct

Wrong
The purpose of art is to glorify God and to bring people closer to His grace.

I can agree with that if we arent going by a narrow and exclusively biblical conception of God.

>he's still stuck in the renaissance

I died laughing too . hahahahahaahah

Like, what art is this person looking at? hahahaha

Don't know if I agree completely. But I guess I am open to the possibility of art work that evokes nothing. I do think certain artists have tried to do that anyway.

Feel cliche saying this, but I think that was part of Warhol's whole deal was trying to make something so compltely surface that you couldn't really feel much for it.

Plus the whole minimalism movement where it's like 'it is just what it is'. Though they did want people to have a bodily reaction, just directly to the object, and not really anything that could be evoked outside of it, so ...

I guess a question may be- can you separate emotion from aesthetics? Is it posibble? I kind of think 'sort of' . There are definitely certain objects that give a 'mood' but I am not convinced they give a real strong response emotionally. And maybe that's not the point. But then again maybe they are not art, and then they are designated just to design.

Art reflects its times...

Though I do wonder if things becoming more surface is kind of just an inevitable part of their evolution, or it more so comes and goes in waves.

I have been thinking about the trajectory of hip hop as an example ... I feel like it started as a conscious self movement filled deep with meaning and politcal input, then kind of went into a bling era where it was all about moneys and hoes, and now it's not even about that. It's starting to literally just become about the sensation from it . The songs are not even really about anything anymore. Which is actually sort of subversive, even though people shit on Trap artists, I just see it as an inevitable conclusion to where mainstream rap music has been going.

I'm actually not so well versed in hip hop, though haha. I just have been watching a ton of vieos about it because I am trying to figure out what mainstream culture is saying about our time period.

I sometimes feel like pop culture is more in tune with the times than fine art, which feels kind of just stuck in a timeless loop of subgenres at this point.

Of course there is an argument in aesthetics that is fucking old as hell about the 'sublime' and then it even talks about how great tragedies such as war are part of that. And then something about what kind of catharsis we get from tragic media that constitutes as a type of pleasure. I can't remember the name of the person who talked about that.

I would argue that fine art at least has put it upon itself to do the exact opposite. It really kind of wants to annoy people. There is a subgroup that gets pleasure out of being annoyed though, and I remember reading about that too.

I feel this post is either pure reddit, or I must be on too few layers of irony to understand it

Elevating emotions to be specific, nothing that causes decline. All artists represent something deliberately in his/her work, intentional representation indicating a form of praise or desire towards the thing being represented. Artists that say otherwise about their own work are exceptions and also liars / deeply misunderstood about themselves.

>There is a subgroup that gets pleasure out of being annoyed
I always knew that ED was an art piece.

Why is she sitting in a tub of jizz?

>give him an argument if you want to change his mind
Art discussion is totally subjective, no mind changing is necessary or indeed possible

The purpose of art is to escape temporarly the suffering of existance, our appetites and the Will by appealing and rasing our consciousness through contemplation and experiencing the sublime, a state where consciousness is not under constant attack from our urges and desires.
This is why Art that appeal and excites our desires instead of trying to supress them will always be inferior. OP's picture related

To me art is something honest and provoking that is making an effort to communicate to me in some way. it doesn't have to be verbal communication, it can be purely emotional abstraction.

But those definitions are really meaningless. I don't like to use the word "art" to refer to anything.

>art
>purpose
>pleasure
>full stop
kek

What are you? Some sort of a retarded child?

underrated post

wow! great synopses. interesting hypothesis about suppressing vs appealing to desires. certainly agree that art's primary objective is: representing and experiencing the sublime. would also add that each artists attempt to represent the sublime is also inherently an argument for what the "sublime" is. and that experiencing the sublime in the presence of that work would necessarily be an acquiescence on the part of the viewer to the artists argument re: what is sublime and the representation thereof.

The goal isn't pleasure imo, unless you expand the meaning of pleasure to include sensations such as awe.