Teresa Lonergan

October 21, 2014

AMT In Class Essay 1

What is the value of art?

In my opinion, the value of art is impossible to size. From the

beginning, the arts have reflected and illuminated life as societies
knew it (and beyond), for thousands of years. The arts are invaluable
because they cannot be defined. The arts are invaluable because one
can take a piece of art (whether creator or viewer) and customize a
learning experience from it. The arts are invaluable because though
philosophers have attempted to define arts value in aesthetic,
hedonistic, cognitivist and expressionist ways, art continues to fall in
many, all or none at all.
If one knew nothing about art yet was placed in front of a work of
art (according to another), at the very simplest reaction, he would feel
something. Some kind of emotion, whether confused or pleasure. This
is what art evokes. How amazing is that something which someone
else has made can have another respond to, whether good or bad. In
Chapter 3 of The Philosophy of the Arts author Gordon Graham
tackles the question of emotions (i.e expressionism) place in the value
of art. Artists are people inspired by an experience of deep emotion,

and they use their skill with words, or paint, or music or marble or
movement, to embody that emotion in a work of art. The mark of its
successful embodiment is that it stimulates the same emotion in its
audience (Graham, pg.33). While many great artists deny that there
was feeling in creating what is considered fine art, the viewer will
always feel something regardless if purposely shared. In a play, though
there are many emotions displayed by characters and actors, the
audience will generally understand a main undertone (sad, happy,
hopeful) throughout. For any given work, it could be true both that in
creation arose from the audience; while at the same time being false
that emotion was the content of the work.
From philosopher Collingwoods Principles of Art; in which
author Boersemas Philosophy of Art comments on, Collingwood
attempts to define art (or art proper) and the faulty pretense that
emotion makes an artist and artist and art, art. The lighting of
emotion which is somehow connected with the expansion of them has
a certain resemblance to the catharsis by which emotions are earthed
through being discharged into a make believe situation, but the two
things are not the same. Collingwood argues against the fact that
even if an artist had no emotion, that a viewer would nonetheless have
emotions from viewing the work of art. Until a man has expressed his
emotion, he does not yet know what emotion it is expression is an
activity of which there can be no technique.

Similar to expression and emotion, art can also be valued by its

experience in which viewer and artist have and take in. Philosopher
Tolstoy believed that the quality of a certain artwork was to be
measured by the experience and emotions, which it evoked. While his
thinking varies (depending on his definitions of different kinds of art),
his principle that experience and feelings are critical to art remains the
same. If only the spectators or auditors are infected by the feelings
which the author has felt, is it art (Tolstoy). This exchange of feelings
is a specific kind of experience, which Tolstoy defines as an infection.
Tolstoy writes that art is an experience of feelings that the artist has
taken, transformed into a singular (but with the possibility of more)
object, displayed for another to be infected by the artists feelingsthe stronger the infection, the better the art (Tolstoy).
Graham rebukes Tolstoys thinking, with having a priori; saying
that emotion as the origin of artwork is a genetic fail. Essentially, the
sincerity of an artists emotions- by valuing art by its ability to evoke
emotion, we must not forget to take into account what the product (art
work) is really like. Using this way of thinking, many things that are
intended to be art, may not genuinely be.
Philosopher J. Dewey wrote more about the experience of art,
specifically fine art and its value. For Dewey, art is a process; It is an
interaction between an organism (he spoke only of humans here) and
its environments, that is, as we will see, art is experience. Art is a

basic way of creating and meaning and shaping those very

environments in which we live. Art is a natural human action and
interaction is evident from the fact that it is universal and across time
and culture (Dewey, pg.51). The fact that art has been in communities
and societies, able to speak for some and connect others (even if not
on purpose) in invaluable. One may not even be trying to experience
anything, yet art can provide experiences further than one knows.
These include aesthetic art experiences, sublime, moving or
profound(Dewey, pg. 52) experiences as well.
I further believe that one can place no amount of value on art as
art is one of the only things in life upon appreciating and creating, one
has complete freedom. Philosopher Kant requires in fact, (in his
definition) that art must be made with freedom, as freedom is vital to
all facilities in the mind. When one is free, one can do anything, and
this includes transcending to a higher state of being. Genius is a
common word for this, as stated by Kant. This is similar to the
experience of art, as Kant writes on The Sublime. Kant believes that
not everything must be beautiful to be art. He also believes that
disinteredness must be a ability of the viewer- a fancy term for
having no limits of imagination, or vision clouded with pre conceived
judgments.
For these ideas and ways of thinking, art seems invaluable as
anyone can interpret and appreciate art, yet still gain something from

it. Because of this, what I find difficult to let art fall into is placing arts
value into a cognitivist theory. Author Douglas Morgan explains to the
question of the cognitive significance of art I directly say that
although many works in many arts can and do give us knowledge of
many kinds, nonetheless if this knowledge were the key and limit to
the love of art, the world would be even sorrier than it is now
(Graham, pg.57). We cannot limit art and say it simply gives us
knowledge, therefore it is valuable. This limitation is quite extreme,
and in it, we would forget about the art in art itself. A great example
of this can be found in Grahams text. He writes that if the Sistine
Chapel were reduced to biblical scrawlings on the walls, what would
we all think than? I believe that in this cognitivist theory, truth, and the
importance of truth, is taken much too literally. Emotion and expression
must save this way of thinking, and henceforth, prove their worth.
In conclusion, art, the arts, are invaluable to me. Graham sums
this up nicely:
(arts) role is not confined to the imaginative understanding of
others, important though that is. What is in view here is human
experience in its widest sense- visual, aural and tactile, as well as
practical emotional and intellectual art then can realize several
different values at the same time, and in fact, in so far as its value
restricted, this can be because those who are skilled in language or

music or painting have resolved not to employ their art for the most
serious purposes (Graham pg. 69, 71).
Art lives on; its definitions have the possibility to change
frequently as time passes. What does not change is its ability to be
universal for all, and this I strongly feel is invaluable.