“What is art?”
Pablo Picasso replied: “What is not art?”
Perhaps Art is a lie for Picasso, yet, it is also a truthful lie. What then, is art in the eyes of the average person? And why is art so expensive?
Let us return to the most primitive state of art with a simple summary: feeling is the creation, expression is the outcome. All final forms of art contains a causal relationship from the beginning of creation till its completion. As a spiritual species, mankind’s sensibility is vital of our survival and it allows people to interact with each other and express feelings. Art is the channel for the artist to convert his feelings through his own artistic language. Whereas the act of seeing, buying, collecting… constitutes of the ‘need’ for expression. Art is a primitive impulse, but interpretation differs with the eras.
“Lovers Above Town” is one of Marc Chagall’s masterpieces: Chagall felt sad & helpless towards the reality of war so he expressed through his own language to rid himself of the pain. The paintings reflected a warm image, but also revealing the suffering in the surroundings. This is the artist’s fusion of the inner and external, emotional and rational.
With this in mind, when we look back at the evolution of art’s history, it is not difficult to find that excellent art always had a close relationship with the time (external environment) in which it was created.
The original form of art is an “illustration” that serves as a propaganda of religion (faith), depicting those scenes that are conducive to spread religious faiths. Later, because of the development of the times, the emergence of the bourgeoisie and the Enlightenment led to the transformation of the function of art into a tool to record events. Along with the second industrial revolution, the individual in the development of modern urbanization was liberated, the spread and expression of art turned into a channel for self-expression; and finally at the end of aesthetic exploration, the social responsibility of art entered the era of contemporary.
In today’s art market, one of the most well-known millionaire-dollar artwork ‘Reclining Nude’ by Amedeo Modigliani was purchased by the Chinese Billionaire Liu Yiqian in 2015. Modigliani’s obsession with the female body was the topic of discussion even till today.
Modigliani’s female body is pure & emotional. His paintings show the man’s tenderness towards a woman’s feelings; his painting language is dignified with a grand atmosphere. We know that “art” passes feelings through the emotions of the audience. When the audience is faced with a “naked woman”, in addition to their visual senses, the painting captures your emotional expression and rational thinking.
Back to the first question, what is art? Is it the balance of our inner world and the external world? Or the dual experience of sensibility and reason? It is difficult to clearly define art at different times, yet the differences in art will be the art’s definition of new interpretations and breakthroughs. Perhaps, it is precisely because of these grey areas, art makes people yearn for it; to pay a high price to own it.