Why Art?- Max Kaufman

Art at its core is a means to create an emotional impact on an observer, whether it is minor or life changing. The role of the artist is to choose a media; while art is quite forgiving the art must be a media of sorts. This is because the job of the artist is to create a soul within the piece. Without media the art wouldn’t exist.  The artist in order to make good art must be emotionally raw. Because art is the visual/audible/physical manifestation of emotion, the artist is at their best when there is nothing dividing their emotions and the work. In other words, the art must be a piece of the artists themselves. The language arts are different from other forms of art because when dealing with language arts the artist must use words to express themselves. In this sense the soul of a literary piece is not necessarily dependent on what is being stated, rather how it is being stated (use of diction, syntax, and imagery). On a separate note what I find interesting about art is its ability to form compound art forms. Take music for example, generally a song is not just instrumental; it has both singing and instrumentation. From this we could conclude that this song has two general art forms residing in it, the lyric and the “music”. As art is discussed, it becomes clear that it doesn’t have to meet many requirements to be considered art. This brings me to whether or not I am an artist. My personal belief is that everyone is an artist, anyone who has attempted to express themselves emotionally (communicate) is an artist. This brings me back to what I stated earlier in that an artist must be emotionally raw; this is rather what separates the effective artists and the ineffective ones. I cannot speak to whether or not I am a good artist.