Why We Do Art?

The Essence Of The Most Nonessential Human Activity

During times of uncertainty, dealing with an economic crisis, pandemic, social uprises, and political clash, we tend to call into question the most important aspects of our lives from the way we live down to the way we think. As we go through a very tumultuous year, with a new convoluting event practically every month, we are continuously evaluating ourselves, our role in society, and the importance and influence of those activities that support our life on this planet.

After the outbreak of the virus we came to know as Covid19 we were urged to remain in quarantine and social distancing, not being able to carry on with our daily routines, except for the people who came to be defined as essential workers, the people that are considered indispensable and effectively necessary to our society.

We cannot help to wonder, where do artistic and creative activities stand in these circumstances?

It is not a secret for anyone that artists in all disciplines are being hit particularly hard in this crisis, from professional entertainers, performers, and musicians to visual artists in general. Suddenly they found themselves without venues, without an audience, without projects and deprived of a way to make a living. For the rest of all, we were left asking ourselves, are artists and artistic activities essential to our lives? What is art good for?

An attempt to answer this question came in the form of a survey commissioned by the Singaporean digital newspaper The Straits Times, published on July 14th, 2020. In the online survey, roughly a thousand respondents aged 16 years old and above, placed artists at the top rank of the top 5 non-essential jobs with a whopping 71% percent against a nurse / doctor in the top 5 essential works at 86%. In the same survey, 29% of the respondents declared to be an artist as a job they would not like to do.

Although this survey is very narrow to a comparatively small number of people in a single country in Asia, this discouraging result is a reflection of the general perception of artists and the practice of art disciplines. It is neither an uncommon nor a new phenomenon, the stigma of the starving artist is probably as old as the creative practices themselves, and regardless of where we are, anywhere in the world, we are all familiar with the image of the parents sitting in the couch with a disgruntled face while their kid admits to them the tragic and horrible truth… — Mom, Dad, I want to become an artist, writer, musician, photographer…, all careers that carry with them the same stigma and the inevitable question.

How will you make a living?

A question that right now in the current crisis is very valid.

What is art, after all?

One of the most important aspects that characterize us as humans is the need for understanding our context; it is a natural mechanism that allows us to adapt and function in any given environment. We do this is by assigning labels, defining, categorizing, grouping, discriminating, organizing, and assign functions to everything we interact with. If we cannot apply any of that criteria, we attribute it to a mighty, supernatural, or spiritual force beyond our understanding. That is particularly true when we are dealing with abstract ideas or emotions like love, passion, hate, anger, or concepts like truth, and art is not an exemption, that is why we have such a hard time trying to define and understand what art is. That is the reason why so many people think of it as a hobby activity and not as a real career path.

The eternal question of what is art, what art does, what is its role or function, or why we do art, is not just reason for debate but also, with so many possible answers. The truth is that the concept of art is so vast, subjective, and influential in so many aspects of our lives that it is impossible to hold it in a single definition or purpose. Every person involved or not in the art world will attempt to define it from their own particular point of view, from academics, psychologists, educators, critics, collectors, curators, artists, and even the audience. The best part of all is that all these definitions are correct, that is the beauty of art, it is something for everybody.

Art is deeply embedded in our human condition, we have been making art since the very beginning of our evolution inception as sophisticated hominids, even before we were capable of understanding who or what we were. Our most primitive form of artistic expression was born out of the necessity of communicating and finding our place and roles in the earliest social structures. Jewelry, body decoration, musical instruments, and of course, cave paintings dating back to a hundred thousand years, providing clear evidence of the fundamental role that art played in our cognitive, cultural, and social evolution.

These early forms of artistic visual expression evolved to become part of the set of graphics, symbols, and glyphs that gave origin to our first written languages and calculation systems, allowing us to take the next step forward in our evolution process, literacy.

We could reduce the invaluable contributions of art to the evolution of our species to its mere practical and utilitarian applications; However, we are not short of researches, studies, and scientific evidence demonstrating the enormous influence that art has on our cognitive, psychological and social development, way beyond the joy of the aesthetic experience.

As we are trying to make a living in an ever-growing competitive and materialistic world, we tend to value those practices that generate immediate and tangible financial results, however when we talk about art is more a case of the big picture scenario, the gain in the future prospects.

We cannot think of art in terms of its utility or purpose, that would be like asking why we eat. Producing art is comparable to a physiological process, the consequence of a natural process of our human brain, a need for expressing and communicating, those who dedicate themselves to do art do it because they cannot help themselves. How they decide to do it, the medium, the style, the message is a question of personal choice but, the motivation is as natural as being.

Nonetheless, let’s not be fooled! While it is true that art is a natural activity of the human condition, it doesn’t mean that it is simple. Good art, the kind of art that tickles your brain and gives you goosebumps takes a lot of effort, a lot of learning, long hours of practice, dedication, discipline, a lot of sacrifices, and sometimes a little bit of insanity, to produce a piece that will change you a bit by bit every time you look at it, even if you don’t notice it.

The next time you find yourself wondering is art really necessary, you might want to consider that without art our evolutionary process in the sophisticated humans, we are today would have been much longer, difficult, and maybe even improbable.