What is the point of being an artist? | Anwar Oduro-Kwarteng | Independent Arts Blogs

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Picture the scene; Thomas returns home after travelling to Vietnam or somewhere equally exotic yet gritty, and declares that he is going to be an artist. His father is stunned into silence, and his mother faints. He may as well have said that he intended to begin preparations to initiate WW3 such is their simultaneous horror, alarm and disappointment. He could have been anything his father chimes with despair etched across his features; a doctor, a lawyer, even an accountant if worse came to worse. But an artist? Surely there is nothing constructive or worthwhile in such a vocation. After all, what is the point of being an artist? Presumably artists as a professional group don’t pay the huge taxes on their wages that the financial sector does, and so the economy does not benefit from their work in the same way. Furthermore, the artist doesn’t save people’s lives in the way a doctor does, or shape the material world that we inhabit like an architect. So what is the point? Put simply, the point of being an artist is to create, and nothing more. What is created and whether it serves any practical purpose is neither here nor there. Attempting to define or justify the artist through the cultural or financial impact that they may or may not make to society is sheer folly, and should be avoided at all costs. Instead, we should be brave enough to defend the purely aesthetic and subjective nature of the artists’ work, and concentrate on the beauty that the artist has the potential to produce in whatever guise it may take. From prose to poetry, from music to sculpture, the remit of the artist is simply to create things of beauty which have the ability to provoke an array of emotions, positive or negative. That is not to sentimentalise in any way the worn out caricature of the tortured soul, who only has the artistic medium as a means of expressing some universally felt angst that we can all identify with. Indeed, we should not necessarily expect the artist to convey anything particularly profound to us. As sometimes works of art have no deeper purpose or meaning than to simply exist for our pleasure. For instance, the National Gallery houses an impressive collection of work by the Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens, one of which is his much celebrated depiction of the biblical story of love and betrayal; Samson and Delilah. There is absolutely no objective point to this masterpiece, it serves no useful purpose other than to inspire awe, and exists only for people to marvel at its beauty – free of charge I might add. Predictably however, some would argue that there is no point whatsoever in being an artist. This is a view that has become particularly prevalent in the current political and financial environment, where the value of everything is measured in pounds and pence. Where intrinsic value is dead, and everything artistic must instead be ‘justified’ instrumentally through artificial ‘impact’ measures or economic contribution. This kind of instrumentalism is pernicious, but we must resist it, and space has to afforded to the artist for free expression, so that we can debate, and agree or disagree about the merits or otherwise of the work. This is vital, because it fosters an open, curious environment in which we are able to appreciate things in themselves, as they are, without pre conditions. However, unfortunately we appear to have lost this openness. And instead we want the artist to be a social commentator, cultural representative, moral voice, or perform any number of other empty, contrived roles. But he is none of these things. As Oscar Wilde remarked, ‘The artist is the creator of beautiful things’ and nothing more.

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You want to measure "Samson & Delilah" from an economic point of view? Nothing's easier - Either set a price to see it and/or allow people to set the price they'd be willing to pay to see it.

That's it. From a pure economic point of view, the only problem with the OP is the expression "free of charge I might add". That's the problem, mate, not something to feel morally superior about.

From an economist's point of view, of course.

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As Oscar Wilde remarked, ‘The artist is the creator of beautiful things’ and nothing more.

My one quibble with that is the word "beautiful". An artist is the creator of things, or ideas, or processes. Engineers can be artists, so unfortunately can be bankers and con-men. What distinguishes an "artist" from a simple technologist/craftsman is the way the artist uses the techniques, tools and materials to create something new.

Some architects are artists some certainly are not. The masters who designed the great cathedrals probably were and they worked with both artists and technically skilled craftsmen as well as hundreds of simple laborers. That they were paid by someone to do it doesn't reduce the artistic element of the work.

The OP is correct that to always frame art in terms of it's "value" monetarily is very shortsighted.

F

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Originally Posted by FredFredson

My one quibble with that is the word "beautiful". An artist is the creator of things, or ideas, or processes. Engineers can be artists, so unfortunately can be bankers and con-men. What distinguishes an "artist" from a simple technologist/craftsman is the way the artist uses the techniques, tools and materials to create something new.

Well yeah, but it's perfectly possible to create something that's new and butt ugly. The 70s proved that.

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