Theories on what Art should do

Chereen Whittick
English 101
　
Theories on what Art should do
Many people may see the works of “Art” in different ways. Never the less Art should represent some true meaning to our lives. According to Leo Tolstoy in the essay,
“What is Art?”, art should “evoke emotions.” On the other hand, “Art on my mind” by Belle Hooks states that art should defamilarise the mind. After researching several different art works and the reading of both essays, I certainly agree with each writer’s point of view. In fact I definitely believe that many of “John Baldessari’s” work of art actually meet both requirements.
Baldessari’s “The Archives of Women Wear” fulfill both Hooks and Tolstoy perspectives on what art should be. According to Tolstoy “we should stop looking at art as a means of pleasure. Instead we should consider it to be one of the condition to human’s life”. (line 1) In other words if we are able to see art more seriously then we may realize that it represent an aspect of our lives in some way. Indeed this particular piece of Baldessari’s art does evoke emotions, a man stoop down eating a apple with a woman standing behind and bending forward over him. As we can see, this splendid piece of art may represent a couple who are in love.
Furthermore this piece of Baldessari’s art more than less fit’s the expectation of Hooks’ ideas about art. She writes in the essay “Art on my Mind” that art should defamilarise the mind. Here she means that art should make people think differently when they look at art, or I should say expect the unexpected. Once again, this selected painting meets this criteria, a man stoop down eating an apple with a woman stand behind bending over him. This makes me think continuously. Who would think that even through the works of art we can see that a men need a woman behind them in life.
Baldessari’s “Pure Beauty” is a combination of many different paintings. However among them there is one unique piece of art that caught my attention. This is a huge bundle of different pieces of colorful clothing and a naked man standing in front of this pile. It seems as if the man’s body was molded out of clay. This special work may not evoke emotions but we may all agree that it most definitely defamilarise the mind. As I said earlier when it comes to art we should expect the things that we may never think are possible in reality. I would never in a million years thought that one could create such an amazing art work from all those pieces of different colorful cloths.
All in all, art evoke emotions and defamilarise the mind .In addition ,it may communicates with it’s viewers differently due to how it is being analyzed by each person. As for me , I have learned that art can be very interesting and in most cases represent a meaning in someone’s life or something around our environments. Having said this i must say that Baldessari’s arts have definitely qualify for what art should be.http://www.walstreetjournal.com/