Art is what humanity has based their ideals off of for generations. Religion since the beginning of time has been set in art, whether that religion was polytheistic or not. Most religions in the past have been polytheistic, they included rituals and prayed to many gods for things that they couldn’t understand. But with this, they created art for them too, since the start; totems, cave paintings, sculptures. These are things that humans made through their emotions, rationality cannot be a basis of valuing art when human emotion is what controls art, is what birthed art. How can I make a doll if there was no basis of how a doll could be made? Art is made for us to feel emotions towards it, so we cannot value it through rationality, what does it even mean to value art through rationality? To take an emotional possession and value it through solely how it was made? Art has nothing to do with how much one was able to be taught certain “advanced” techniques. Where one went to school, who they studied, how they studied, simply that they can and do create things that evoke emotion in many people, that they can express themselves outwards in a way that reflects onto and out of groups of minds creating one together.
If art is simply valued rationally, we would not have great art, as it would not expand beyond perfection, art is not perfection, it is the lack thereof. Art is not measured by technique, and this is a flaw that I see still even to this day. A ration valuation of art, kills art. Art is not the imitation of life, but the abstraction through emotion, “if art is imitation, mirror-images are art.” (Danto) As we know, as I know, looking into a mirror stand-alone, is not art. So doesn’t ‘perfecting technique’ invalidate art? If art is solely rational, then where does the line for art get drawn, is this essay art because of how well it is grammatically composed? OR IS IT ART when the barriers of the norm are rip – ped apart and left behind. That being said, rationality is of course an important component in art, as if there was no rationality, there would be no progress nor would there be comparison, but before rationality comes emotion and in that it should be honored as the value.
When art is valued through rationality, that is where we regress as society, in my opinion. Arguably, the greatest artists and authors of humanity have been ones that do not restrict their value on art rationally, because if they did, why would they create such masterpieces that value emotion over structure or imitation. You could argue, however, that those artists did not want to make “good” art, or did not for their time make “good” art, but that doesn’t change the value now or forever. Even when you judge art on its feelings, the value of what it has to say, what is good and bad, you judge not based on how it is made, but why or what it is made. A piece of art is judged in its entirety of its social normalities of the time, and so “bad” art can be called “bad” just because of the image it portrays or the ideologies that it pushes, even if rationally and technically it is “good”. I want to hold this argument close and clearly show you that this case does not fight on the side of rationality, because I can see how one might steer it this way. If a piece of art is good or bad based on its time and ideologies but is perfect in rationality and technique, isn’t that reason to praise and value rationality of art instead? No, it’s not, because what I am showing you is not the lack of sensible comparison of bad vs good, but the comparison being made on the basis of the emotion of the piece. The fact that a piece is judged emotionally, no matter its technique, shows how important it is to value emotion over rationality, and it is not our rationality that needs to change, it is not the technique that needs to be perfected for an art piece to be good, but its emotional state. To some at least, that is how good works.
But again, art in general is made through emotion, and so to take away the emotion as the forefront of value would be indecent. Art is not a mirrored image, but the emotions of man joined together in one. I do not care how perfect a picture looks, if I did, I could go outside. There is no doubt that the most perfect painting in rationality and technique is utmost beautiful, but it is not of the same value, to me, as the same painting, painted with emotion, with strokes that tell me and allow me to share in its happiness, it’s sadness.
