Why is Art?

By Joe Hernandez

Art is a unique form of expression, every bit as diverse and meaningful as language. We can all agree on letters, vowels, and definitions, and find that some people are more practiced in coercion, sales, or charm than many others. Art is much the same, we can all agree on colors, shapes, and structure but it takes practice to use those and create meaning or communicate ideas through visuals. In this way we can get closer to sharing what is inside us, although still imperfect, painting scenes of flowers or strife, evoking almost universal feelings, using various tools to direct those. Yet, it’s not enough to know what they are, the artist must use these with skill and grace, or lay waste to the entire enterprise. Almost the same as language.

Often, we look at a work and wonder, either quietly or aloud, why is THIS Art? It looks like that of a child’s work, it was made by using simple patterns, or a single color. Abstraction and Realism juxtaposed against each other as though they exist in some different, distant universe, far apart from anything that would bind them together. Yet they are one in the same. Conglomerations of shape and color, used in varying ways, applied with different techniques or tools, only differing in their applications on a particular work. All art is in an effect to trick the brain, the eyes, and the other senses, using abstractions to evoke a particular response. Whether that is the feeling of realism or the confoundment of abstraction, the cause is the artist push and pull of techniques, shapes, and color. Often gone missing from the superficial observations is the undercurrent of trial and error, a thousand decisions made and forgotten, each one leading the creator down a path of discovery, however it is not a lonely one, as each viewer will derive their own meaning as well. 

Art becomes a community of viewpoints; each work a spectrum of ideas evoked inside all of the individual viewers of the piece. This is where art must become visceral, free from the judgement of the waking mind, the viewer must give in to their inmost feelings, whether wonder or wrath. The confoundment of the experience can be overpowering, even to the point of deciding that its all nonsense. In a way, it is. Simple tricks of line and value to evoke certain messages, certain feelings or provoke, and get under the skin of the observer, are done with intent, but that intent is only inherent to the artist, as all other meaning of value MUST come from the viewer.

Art as a form of language is so often missed or misconstrued, because so often Art can come across as snobby or requiring a certain viewpoint. But the point is to express a thought or feeling without the use of words, to describe something beyond that which words are capable. Art is an attempt at finding common ground in uncommon expression, to hear a point of view without having to prepare a retort, an opportunity to listen, not to understand, but to know that there are experiences so far outside your own, that even a blank page can express a universe of being and feeling.