The 7 Step Guide To what-is-the-purpose-of-art

Inherent in man’s reason and thought is the purpose, the function, an exposition or explanation that supports the answer to the why of things;  that motor fuels our curiosity, and is the door of knowledge and wisdom.  This article that brings together seven purposes of art seeks to answer the vital and essential questions of art, the artist and the history of art.

The art is like an old man full of knowledge and beauty.

Bernini Greatest Work In Stone

Art is as old as man.  We know of the first links in the human chain thanks to the footprints they left and which have defied the passage of time.  There is, in every artistic manifestation, a purely human desire to transcend the notions of time and space; to communicate;  of offering to a spectator – known or unknown, near or far, dead or alive – an aesthetic experience, the testimony of a subjective and intimate experience, the alternative to understand and grasp the world and its mysteries.

The Evolution of Art

Those first artistic manifestations (and that the review and retrospective study carried out by History have located in what we all know today under the name of “prehistory”), although they may be associated with a utilitarian nature of the pieces made, represent that primal approach and interaction of man with materials and with the possibilities of new forms from procedures and tools. 

 This is the case of the first knives, spears, hooks, and all those utensils manufactured for purely utilitarian purposes, related to the survival of the species, but which already bring in themselves the creative germ of the exploration of the properties of the  materials and the skills of human hands. 

 This utilitarian function will be surpassed when the man is faced with the need to start solving questions about the world around him, to look for explanations and to reveal the mysteries that surround him.  Then their expressions will have a ritual, magical, predictive function. The strokes he makes on the rocks with coal and with pigments made from the minerals found will not only be his way of drawing a line beyond the obvious, of the known, but they will begin to pierce the path of creation and  of an aesthetic approach to account for your experience, your reality and your desire. 

How the Art of the Past Influences the Future Forms of creation?

It is very possible that this caveman does not have, at the time, the dimension of what his representative practices will be for the history of art or the history of humanity (it must be remembered that most of these drawings have been found  in very deep parts of caves where the access of man and light is difficult, which suggests that they were not aware of the significance that the work of art represents, and that this was not their purpose either), and of They became a historical document and a reference for many artists and aesthetic movements.  

It is very important to point out at this point that the places where prehistoric paintings and drawings have been found also account for a selection criterion of said place;  that is to say, that the drawings and the paintings, although concerning the language of the two-dimensional, are made taking great care of the cracks, protuberances and depressions of the rocks where they are traced.  This in order to give it a volume, to promote the proximity of that representation with the source itself, with its model.

Altamira one of the best place to learn about prey Art

Bison Altamira Caves Spain

This bison, one of the most representative images of the Altamira cave (the dating of the archaeological pieces found there is between 14530 to 11180 BC), and which is known as the “Sistine Chapel” of prehistoric art, is  a clear example of an attempt at representation that goes beyond mere accident or an unsuspecting sketch. Already there is an intention, a line, a particular line, a treatment of the form and the background, and a style of its own that leads to the assumption with certainty that whoever carried it out was in charge of that task and fulfilled this role within the incipient  socio-cultural order of the community; a magician, a priest, on whose shoulders lay the success of the one who went in search of food for his tribe.

 It is worth mentioning at this point what has been called the “Sistine Chapel” of the Amazon jungle by the Dutch scientist Thomas van der Hammen, located in the Chiribiquete mountain range, located between the departments of Caquetá and Guaviare, in Colombia,  and that it houses some very old pictographs (estimated some with up to 20,000 years old), and that they have in the Jaguar one of the central figures of their pictograms (paintings on stone), guardian and seminal origin of that land and its inhabitants.

 Although in these manifestations that we perceive and assume today as the first works of art, the relationship between representation and purely aesthetic purpose may not be so clear or evident;  Yes, thanks to their stylistic and thematic features and the first steps of artistic training, a new category of the created object has been drawn in which skill will be achieved through a conjunction between a “teacher”, a “trade  “, And a” disciple “.  Later, and already locating itself in Eastern cultures such as India, Mesopotamia and Egypt, the purpose of art will oscillate between a close relationship with deities and rulers and kings, which makes it a legitimate record of their power and authority of deities during this ancient time.

Egyptian  Art Stone Carving low Relief

This Amazing Art Piece Is The Prove of A great Master in Egyptian Culture

What purpose does art serve?

As we progress through time and space, we have in classical art, more specifically during the 5th century, called the “Golden Age” of Pericles (and which constituted a century of artistic, cultural and economic splendor), a purpose  of art associated with perfection personified in harmony, beauty, proportion and movement of the human body, all in function of surpassing nature.  The bronze, marble and stone figures show the rise and development of foundry and carving techniques. 

 For the Greeks, their artistic works represented the best document to account for the worship they rendered to beauty and its direct emanation from divinity.  But not all his artistic production was framed in the high cult of gods and heroes of war and competitions; also, in its ceramic vessels, amphoras and other pieces made for a funerary purpose, daily life, board games, Greek mythology are portrayed, from detailed drawings that can be seen as illustrations or, even some, as fragments of  comic books. 

 Subsequently, it will be the Romans who will give a new purpose to art: that of imitation and serial reproduction.  Many of the classical Greek works destroyed or lost during the invasions of Greece were later reproduced by Roman artists, such as the Doríforo de Policleto (‘El Viejo’) or the Aphrodite of Praxíteles.

Classical  Art the Porpuse To Show The Beauty  Of The Human Form

This beauty and the natural form of this great piece Of Art that reflect the skills and knowledge of the Classical Sculptors.

How Art is used for the purpose of colonization and dominance of the cultures?

Likewise, it also highlights another of the purposes of art, that of influence and ‘contamination’ or inheritance of later artistic manifestations with respect to their predecessors, as happens, for example, in the case of the use of Corinthian, Ionic and  Doric of the columns that the Romans made in the construction of their coliseum, Flabio’s Amphitheater.

  The Romans explored the purpose of art in terms of appropriation, colonization and dominance of the cultures and peoples that were submitted by them.  They not only appropriated the styles and techniques of the conquered peoples but also fostered the re-invention of art for them as a pragmatic exercise in the service of the empire. 

 This is how architecture represents a very important manifestation of its artistic expression, followed by sculpture and painting, and the three are put at the service not only of the functional character or purpose but also, to a large extent, to the propagandistic one. 

 In particular, in Roman sculpture two aspects are configured: one popular and realistic, and the other aristocratic and realistic.  This in itself supposes the inclusion of a purpose of art that tends to invention towards creation away from the model and favored by an idealization of the object from which it is based, no longer as a way to achieve divinity (Greece) but as in  freely creative exercise by the artist, in this case, the sculptor.

Majestic  piece of Architecture
What is the purpose of art essays?

As early as the Byzantine Empire, with the fall of the Roman Empire, and later with Romanesque and Gothic art, the purpose of art will be in a very close relationship with religious art and with promoting or translating the divine experience to the  mortal and perishable beings.  For this condition, the work of the workshop with the consequent figures of the teachers and their disciples is very important.  

It is worth mentioning here that this has been, up to the moment mentioned in this article, the main condition for safeguarding a very clear style and purpose regarding the function and responsibility of artistic expressions and their stylistic and aesthetic features.  Of particular importance is the transmission of technical and stylistic knowledge from the hand of a teacher, from an artist who knows with skill and wide knowledge the materials, tools and tastes or requirements of an audience, and who knows how to guide a disciple  that demonstrates the intention of entering the fine arts.

Mosaic  Of Jesus this total hard work of hundreds  of small  pieces together  to create  the most beautiful  image of Chist.

Mosaic of Jesus

What was the Art purpose in MichaelAngelo times

Moving on to the Renaissance, a period based on Greco-Roman culture, the rescue of the precepts of those past times is sought in all artistic manifestations and the construction of thought, sculpture, painting, literature, architecture, music and philosophy.  In this moment of exaltation of man, of his rational intelligence and of his manual abilities, the figure of the patron, that well-to-do man or woman, with a taste and refinement towards art and all its manifestations that sponsors an artist, is of utmost importance.  and becomes a sponsor of his artistic work.  

David created out a 17 feet block of Marble , with this Master Sculpture  Michael Angelo Change  the Porpuse  Of Art.

David created out a 17 feet block of white Marble ; with this Master Sculpture Michael Angelo Change the Porpuse Of Art.

This is the case of Lorenzo de Médicis, who sponsors Miguel Ángel.  Although there is something coercive in this sponsorship that well turns the artist into an architect of the will and whims of his patron, it is also true that under this protection another of the purposes of art was nourished and strengthened: creation by creation…

 Parallel to the duties or quotas that the sculptors, painters, musicians, and their mentors had to ‘cancel’, they could give free rein to the attributes and conditions that an artist needs to create: contemplation, investigation, observation, experimentation  , the availability of space, tools, helpers, and all those indispensable resources; as well as the exchange with peers, with interlocutors who, in the workshop or in court, allowed them to exchange and nurture their creative experiences and the ways in which they carried out their approaches to the matter or to the surrounding reality.

Art School painting by Raphael

Rafael’s School of Arts in Athens

Later other periods, such as the baroque and rococo, will turn the purpose of art to exaggeration and profusion of ornaments, to the extravagant and elegant, to the appreciation and exacerbation of detail and organic figures.  Behold, from this moment, art begins to wink at the exploration and insertion of sensations, internal passions, human emotions, sensualism and conceptism;  elements that will be emblematic themes of later art, especially romanticism and avant-garde movements.

Altar of the Asamkirche (Church of the Asam), Munich.

What Is the Purpose of Making Art and at what point does art have a new look?

From this moment, and with a very telling gesture of neoclassicism (in the sense of a clear distancing from the Baroque and Rococo that precede it, and which will mark a turn in the purpose of art with respect not only to its own history but also  with respect to the history of humanity), this period turns its gaze to Greco-Roman classical art, recovering elements of symmetry, simplicity and the theme used as a source of inspiration.

 This new look brings with it a revolutionary element that is no longer associated with ritual, religion, pedagogy, the concretion of the idea of ​​perfection, propaganda or any other of the purposes we have mentioned, but art as an instrument.  To communicate a disagreement (in this case, regarding the variegation and the excess);  and, later, to reveal the injustices and the breaks and the ruptures of man with society, with the family, with institutions and with himself.  From romanticism to the present day, that will be one of his biggest concerns, sometimes moving away from it or getting too close.

 And it is precisely in romanticism, in that explicit clash with illustration and with neoclassicism, that the artist will exalt his creative principle and creativity as bastions that will grant him self-centeredness, freedom, the exaltation of the double love / death, the  introspection and, something very important in this period, inspiration.

What is the purpose of art today?

From now on, it is important to point it out again, it will seem that the artistic manifestations, movements or periods that emerge –at least in the first half of the 20th century–, will look at the distant past with nostalgic eyes and try to recover some of that “  paradise lost ”while opposing with the same force with which they long for the period of which they are direct children. In this constant movement of push and pull, of loss the love of the father and of recovering the most distant ancestors, the exchange between peers, between experienced artists and amateur artists, between teachers and disciples, and between different artistic languages ​​will be very important.  Many of the great artists in the history of universal art went through workshops, studios, schools that allowed them to recognize their abilities and take advantage of them for the benefit of their aesthetic concerns.

 Following the logic of the antithesis, realism arises as an opposition to the egocentrism and idealism of romanticism.  Its purpose is none other than to provide plausibility to art from everyday, banal or, apparently, insignificant scenes that point out the possibilities of art to reproduce the surrounding reality and thus constitute a document and memory of a civilization, a  culture or of a certain time.  

Later, with Impressionism (first nod to avant-garde and its artistic and aesthetic expressions) the painter will leave the studio, to register through pigments the incidence of physical phenomena (light) on objects.  The purpose of art will become very important as a way of fixing the ephemeral on the canvas, the speed and nuances in which the colors will change according to the passage of time.

What is the ultimate purpose of art? Is it possible that there are new forms of art we haven’t discovered or invented yet? Why?

As the history of humanity progresses, it is seen how the social, political and economic phenomena of the countries are increasingly influencing the role of the artist and art. 

The First and Second World Wars are a clear example of this.  The environment that predates the First World War strengthens and accelerates the incipient appearance of the artistic avant-garde that Impressionism already represents and, within them, Expressionism will have as its main function to capture the pre-war anguish through the  brushstroke, the palette used in paintings and themes such as the famous The Scream by Edvard Munch.  All these avant-gardes and their artists represent a break with what their time represents, either because of the conflict (wars) or because of the norm that prevails at the moment in which they are born.  Its main purpose, and that will be the flag of its creative capacity, will be freedom of expression;  For this, the most revolutionary and thunderous way out will be the outrageous breaking of the norm, the canon, the rules and academicism.

Fauvism will be the provocative, instinctive and vital explosion of color.

Cubism will bring to art a sour and ironic humor that will portray, as in the case of Picasso, the horrors of the Spanish Civil War as demonstrated in Guernica, and the decomposition of forms through geometric figures and juxtaposition of plans and views.  

Futurism will be the ode to the machine, to the revolution and to the aggressive and contested word.

Dadaism will bring to art that delirious concern and loss of meaning in the face of the devastation and death that war brings. 

Ultraism will be a manifestation of Spanish-speaking poets and narrators both in Spain and in the southern cone of America.  With surrealism the purpose of art will approach psychoanalytic theories and explore the unconscious, dreams, desires and drives.

Among other artistic movements of the second half of the 20th century

Abstract Expressionism can be mentioned, with its dripping technique, extended by an artist like Jackson Pollock;  pop art that explores collage, screen printing, photography, reproduction as an artistic gesture, comics.

Minimalism with its synthesis and its return to basics.

Land Art and its ‘colonization’ of nature through intrusion into a natural landscape and its subsequent modification.

• Hyperrealism that subverts the function and essence of both photography and painting itself.

Performance and the happening with its contaminations and dialogues with the performing arts, the visibility of the invisible, of the eschatological, of censorship.

Already within the latest trends there is video, installation and electronics;  all languages ​​and artistic expressions that become witnesses to that purpose of art to refuse to stay in the sphere of the pure, the uncontaminated and the canon and rule. 

 The more one advances along the path of art and the more artists the communicating threads stretch between one language and another, between the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional;  between the copy and the original; among other polarities or games of opposites that dynamize and renew the original purpose of both the artist and the work, to end up being, in all cases, the only, accurate and purely human way under which man can account for what  it differentiates it from any other form of life on the planet… And more new forms of Art will appear with time.

In conclusion the porpuse of Art is to bring  the feeling  of are self through  the medium like in the marvelous  sculpture by Michael Angelo.

In conclusion the Porpuse of Art is to bring the feeling of are self through the medium like in the marvelous sculpture by Michael Angelo.

In Conclusion What is Art Porpuse?

After this tour of the most representative moments and trends in art, the close relationship between art, society and subject can be elucidated;  and how this relationship modulates the purposes of art according to the spirit of the various times or events of humanity. The Purpose of Art constitutes the starting point, the essential question that the human being asks himself and whose answer he seeks and finds through aesthetic elements, through color, material, form, concept and interaction with the human being.  observer. For the purpose of art to be completed, whatever it may be (witness, distractor, critic, among others), dialogue is undoubtedly needed and this is ensured through the interaction of an artistic work with its audience; of an artist with the cultural and artistic instances of his time; and with the relationship and exchange that is achieved through workshops, courses, art pedagogy. 

So the path remains to continue the journey through the exciting world of art, artists, works and techniques. 

Becoming an artist is worth  being part of a moving train that is going forward  to the future and leave your footprint for history to study.

Join the membership and start learning how to become an artist.

About the Author Ruben

Colombian Artist
I am a working artist since 1987 in the mediums of Stone Sculpture, Wood Sculptures and Oils painting...

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