Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.
Trending News
Is art ultimately useless?
I've been told I'm good at art. I enjoy art. However, over the past few months I've started to see art as having no real purpose.
Sure, it looks pretty and can inspire some interesting discussions, but in the end it's only really useful for the artist as a way to express themselves, and there are better and more productive ways to achieve that.
If someone paints a painting, it doesn't help society as a whole. It serves to make the artist proud of him/herself, which is a rather selfish goal.
An architect provides places for people to live or work. A doctor cures people of illness. A teacher educates the youth. An artists smears pigment on a canvas, or mashes some clay into a particular shape, or draws a cartoon nobody laughs at. It's a time waster, a way to placate the masses.
Being good at art is my "gift" or "talent" in the same sense as my being able to bend my foot behind my head is a gift of talent.
2 Answers
- 6 years ago
Personal gains aren't bad. If they were, then we would all be at fault for not having a purely altruistic mindset. Let's face it, no one can be truly selfless without wanting to attain something throughout their entire life. Buddhists seek a simple life not so others can have what they have, but to attain spiritual enlightenment and separate themselves from the materialistic needs of this world. Having personal goals is just the way all people are meant to be.
Anyway, without art society would be really depressing and dull. The impact of art on a nation's culture is so huge that some nations have their governments set up programs to preserve and promote art. Back in the 1930's, after the Great Depression, the U.S. government sought out ways to promote the arts in society through music and cinema to help people escape from their terrible impoverished lives. Going to the movies or attending concerts were just a few of the many forms of escape that the arts provided from the evergrowing despair in America at the time. Makes it seem like art was nothing more than a distraction, huh, but it's better than letting a whole nation be depressed for a decade, wouldn't you say?
- 6 years ago
I'm gonna be straight up. Don't do anything that you feel is not for you. If art is your passion and you love it that much than don't let anything stop you from pursuing it. If you really and i mean REALLY love art that much than pursue it. Remember that selfishness is not always a bad thing. In this case you have to be selfish and do what you have to do.
